The Dance of Anger
by Harriet Lerner

List Price: $14.00
Pages: 256
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 006091565x
Publisher: HarperCollins

The content of your books seems to flow easily and speak personally to each reader. I'd like to begin by asking you when you first started to write.

During most of my growing-up years in Brooklyn I kept one of those lock-and-key diaries. This helped me to see writing as an ordinary daily activity, to not be afraid of seeing my words on paper, and to understand the act of writing as comforting. And my diaries were my place to tell the truth, although I didn't always do that.

Was there a glimpse of future talent in those diaries?

Absolutely none. No evidence of literary talent, insight, imagination, or even courage. Today, when I'm invited to talk to students in the public schools, I bring a diary along and pass it around. If I'm going into a sixth-grade class, I bring my sixth-grade diary.

Isn't that very brave -- passing your diaries around?

When you reach fifty, your life is no longer embarrassing, because you realize that everyone's life is embarrassing.

So many women want to write and don't dare or think they can't. Do you really believe that anyone can write?

I don't think there is a writing gene, or a publishing gene, although some people have a larger share of natural talent and luck. But I believe that writing, like conversation, is a basic form of human communication rather than the property of a gifted few. We should not allow someone to discourage us from writing any more than we should allow someone to discourage us from talking. If another person tells you that you can't write -- well, disbelieve them.

Writing is so difficult that I sometimes wonder what motivates writers to write?

Many, many things move us to write. We can write as a spiritual practice, like climbing a sacred mountain, as Deena Metzger puts it. Or writing can be the tactic of a "secret bully", as novelist Joan Didion reminds us --" a way to say listen to me, see it my way, change your mind." Many of us write with modest goals, like to change the world. But if what's driving us to write are the "wrong things", our writing won't be good or it won't come out at all. I've learned after long years of experience that every time I have writer's block my unconscious is trying to tell me I'm off the track.

I know that you've been critical of so many experts jumping on the advice-giving bandwagon. So how did you get into writing self-help books?

With enormous reservations, actually. I think women can't be cautious enough in facing the advice-giving industry, which is a multibillion-dollar business sensitively attuned to our insecurities, our purses, and our endless and impossible pursuit of perfection. But the truth is, I've come to love and value writing self-help books. And I think I ' ve managed to avoid recipes for success, quick-fix solutions, and blueprints for relational bliss.

So you didn't start out seeing yourself as a "popular writer"?

Definitely not. First I published in scholarly journals and scientific publications. It was a sudden and unexpected turn in my career when I wrote The Dance of Anger in "just plain English" and for "just plain folks". It was an incredibly difficult transition, but I was dedicated to the task. Anyone who thinks that it's simpler to write simply has never done it, or has never done it well. Of course, I had many worries at the time.

Like?

Like I worried that my colleagues would write me off. And I wondered whether a book could really change people's lives.

And what did you conclude?

Some self-help books do change people's lives. I know, because many, many people have told me so, and I believe them. I've been incredibly moved by the response to my work.

And surprised?

Yes, very much so. As a psychotherapist, I know that substantive change often occurs slowly, sometimes at glacial speed. So it has amazed me how people could take an idea from my Dance books and just run with it.

I'm wondering if you think your Dance triology should be read in any particular order.

I'm frequently asked that question, and people can be very insistent in wanting an answer. Sometimes I tell people to eyeball all three and just see which one they're most drawn to. Sometimes I tell people the opposite, to start with the book they are absolutely certain couldn't possibly have any relevance to their own lives. ("Who, me? Angry!?") Really, my books can be read in any order and they will build on one another.

When you were working on The Dance of Anger, did you know that The Dance of Intimacy and The Dance of Deception would follow?

No way. The Dance of Anger was a five-year project with endless revisions--and this was in the days before I had a computer. I could wallpaper the largest room in my house with rejection slips from my first book. When it finally was published, I was convinced that no one would read it besides my mother and my seven best friends. And I said, "I will never do this again. Never. It's too hard."

But you kept writing more books?

The extraordinary response from my readers amazed me and inspired me. But I learned that the line between being a New York Times bestselling author and being a writer who never gets published at all-- well, it's a thin line indeed.

And do you have any thoughs about what makes the difference between success and failure?

Perseverance, talent, and yes, luck.

I know that a lot of people wonder why you write for women, when you're an expert in families and relationships. Why do you do you?

There is a long and short answer to that question. The short answer is that I write for women because I want to, it's where my heart is. Men read my books as well, usually because their therapists tell them to. And of course, they find themselves in them. On most days, I believe humans are more alike than different.

I know that you identify yourself as a feminist. How has the feminist movement influenced your writing?

How hasn't it? My debt to feminism is simply incalculable. Feminism allowed me to see past a ":reality" that I had once taken as a given. It helped me to pay attention to countless voices, my own included, that I had been taught "don't count." Feminism allows me to maintain hope.

But don't other people think that feminism is a biased and narrow perspective?

Well, it's not so. We may think it's a narrow perspective because no author writes, "This book is informed by my patriarchal perspective." So when people hear the term "feminist perspective" or "lesbian perspective" or "Latina perspective", we think that the voice is narrow and biased because the dominant group just has a "perspective."

Like their reality is "it."

What do you most want to accomplish in your books?

I want to help people navigate their relationships in clear and solid ways. Learning a bunch of "techniques" won't cut it. I want my readers to understand how relationships operate and why they go badly. And this includes seeing that part we ourselves play in the problems that bring us pain. And I want readers to see the broader picture of injustice and inequality that affects us all. There is never a resting place in the struggle for a fair world.

Is there some particular virtue, quality, or trait that you think is especially important for women to develop in their lives?

Courage. I heard Maya Angelou say that courage was the most important of all virtues. Because without courage, we can't practice any of the virtues-- patience, honesty, forgiveness-- with consistency. I agree with her.

Speaking honestly, do you see yourself as a courageous woman?

Not in terms of physical challenges, like, say, climbing a mountain or rushing into a burning building to attempt a rescue. I'm not heroic. But I'm brave in terms of speaking out and saying what I think, even if my heart is pounding and I'm terrified. Without this kind of courage, I might as well not write.




Excerpted from The Dance of Anger © Copyright 2008 by Harriet Lerner. Reprinted with permission by HarperCollins. All rights reserved.

• Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.

top of the page