Told in third person omniscient point of view, and set in modern day North Carolina, novelists, Connie Williams takes her pen to craft this heart wrenching and compelling story of genuine family, hope, life and Christian love. Jon and Lale’s Dance is written in twenty-two chapters and begins when Jon Cam Smalls Sr. finds himself injured and hospitalized at the local Union Memorial Hospital because of a foolish and avoidable accident, following a Friday night anniversary celebration with all of the family. His twelve children, each one facing their own personal life storms, finds it so difficult to care for their parents: Jon Cam Sr., a stubborn, know-it-all, WWII ailing Veteran, and his once creative, and constantly fiery, but ailing wife, Lale. Williams’ includes an Epilogue that describes the siblings lives following some stormy life changing events for which they must make decisions. Included, also are three Appendixes for further improved understanding of events for the reader in the narrative. Sixty plus years of marriage has gone by, and the couple, Jon and Lale, find themselves still totally devoted to each other, yet they cannot resist the daily temptations, from time to time, to slip back into their old habits of agitating each other at the most inopportune moments. Lale can’t manage to leave the house to grocery shop for necessities with her daughter, Topia, for Jon’s Doctor Pepper and jar of Jiffy peanut butter, without first directing some insults toward him about his need to sit, do nothing and nap at the kitchen table. And Jon cannot manage to resist using his quick-wit of accusations that stops Lale in her tracks each time she makes an attempt to prepare to leave the house, to get into the car with her daughter, Topia. So this is how their battles usually begin, that sometimes last all afternoon, until Jon wants to nap again. They each enjoy satirizing. Williams’ threads this story with humor, suspense, tragedy and the true-to-life sensitive facts about health issues such as dementia, crippling rheumatoid arthritis and cancer that so many families and senior citizens face, that may lead to their sometimes early demise in today’s society.
