DANCING IN THE LIGHT

by Shirley MacLaine ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1985

The appeal of MacLaine's best seller Out on a Limb wasn't only that the actress/author promised everlasting life through reincarnation. No, she wisely served up a menu of personal revelations, a spicy account of her affair with a British dignitary, and sweet, if silly, reports of her encounters with astral beings who, from such distance, maintain a sense of show-biz savvy. Unfortunately, here she just gives us too much more of the same, to the point where her mystic sensibility becomes a cosmic bore. Oh, some interesting personal details do slip out. For example, she admits one source of discord with ex Steve Parker, of whom she has resolutely refused to speak publicly, was that he was money hungry. Such interesting tidbits, alas, come few and far between. She opens this book with her 50th birthday celebration in New York, a triumphant period for her, and then focuses in on the continual bickering that goes on between her aging, ailing parents. While her patience with their querulousness is touching, her cosmic search for the reasons they have not set right the wrongs in their marriage is not. We soon lose sympathy with her--and interest in her parents. The second section relates in exhaustive detail her five-year affair with a Russian director working in this country. Again, we are given the opportunity to study MacLaine's masochism close up and personal. The man is temperamental, demanding and silly, but she has a different perspective on his behavior, attributing it to the need of his former incarnations to resolve differences in this lifetime. Finally, in the third section, we follow MacLaine through a journey into her past where she meets all her previous incarnations. This could prove entertaining only to a mystic junkie eager for news from the karma front. One of her more bizarre revelations is that an astral being ""stole"" her purse while she was shopping in an expensive boutique as a kind of cosmic practical joke. It seems MacLaine may no longer simply be out on a limb, but, possibly out of her tree!

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Bantam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1985

Categories: NONFICTION