I have read and re-read this book many times since I first discovered it in the early 70's. I just love it, and wish I could find alot more titles by this talented author.

I bought this book because of its literary pedigree--the author was a Houghton-Mifflin fellowship winner. But I ended up loving it for its wonderful humor, insights, vividly drawn characters and on-target depiction of the turbulent '60s. The protagonist--Fitzie--is a bright Kennedyesque advertising man who struggles with his career, his marriage and his soul. I read it first in the early 1970s and I reread it every several years--it only gets better with age. Hannibal went on to write several more engaging novels (Dancing Man & Liberty Square Station) but has not been published recently---more's the pity...

I read this book many years ago, and have always loved it. That, however, doesn't say whether the book is good or bad.

What makes this book good is that it shows the transition of America during the 1960s in one of its most turbulent periods. In this book, we follow the path of Boston-born Fitzie, an Irish kid who attends college at a Jesuit college, ends up as an officer in the U.S. Army and eventually makes his way to Madison Avenue where he becomes a bigwig in advertising. (Hannibal was or still is president of Grey Advertising, I believe, one of the nation's top advertising firms; and yes, I believe it is on Madison Avenue.)

Read this book if you can get it; it's an excellent work of art, just excellent. (It reads like an American James Joyce in many ways.)

You can tell right off that Edward Hannibal and Robert Boris are obsolete, liberal hero worshippers. Robert Kennedy, who is idolized in this ... claptrap, was a ruthless ideologue and self-promoter who supported and worked for the great Red-baiter, Joseph McCarthy. It was Robert Kennedy who authorized the illegal wiretapping of Martin Luther King's telephone conversations and who used J. Edgar Hoover to rid the civil rights movement of authentic activists. The ultimate disapparance of Hoffa remains a mystery, but the assassination of Robert Kennedy no doubt came about because of his persecution of numerous people in organized crime,who provided him and his brother Johen with useful support earlier in his career. He had his henchmen wake up innocent people in the dead of night to hall them off to be questioned, abusing his power as Attorney General as no other Attorney General in history, including A. Mitchell Palmer and John Ashcroft. Compared to Kennedy, Hoffa was a saint. It was Kennedy who orchestrated the attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro as well as the murder of Che Guevera.

This book is a travesty.

This book will certainly arouse the team spirit in all who read it.

The Players:

Jimmy Hoffa, Teamster and Mafioso

Robert Kennedy, young attorney and future Attorney General & Senator

The arena: their respective work places and court

Jimmy Hoffa, a notorious teamster scores one point early in the book. The author provides information about the man's background, all but complimenting him on becoming a self made man with requisite leadership abilities. Hoffa is clearly intelligent, but he is also underhanded and wily.

Enter Robert Kennedy. A hard working, driven man who will stop at NOTHING to see Hoffa indicted. He feels Hoffa is the living definition of evil and that organized crime is social malignancy. He moves in on Hoffa with the skill and precision of a fencer, waiting to make that final jab. He scores points in the courtroom interrogating Hoffa, et al. and incurs the wrath of the mafia.

The heat is on...the tension is felt on both sides. Spectators are, thanks to the sympathies portrayed by the author, rooting for...Robert Kennedy! One cheers his harsh questioning of Hoffa and other mafiosi; one smiles at how he and Hoffa feuded over picayune things such as who left the lights on in their offices longer. Both men engaged in spitting matches such as this. The spitting matches escalated as the "blood feud" between the Teamster/mafioso and the attorney became more public.

I rooted for Robert Kennedy.

I found the book to be a good read on the subject of the Kennedy-Hoffa feud. I noticed that towards the beginning of the novel, the author tried to portray Hoffa in a, not favorable, but sympathetic light. But towards the end Robert Kennedy was clearly the one the readers are to root for. Many of Kennedy's famous quotes can be found through out the dialog. All in all, a good way to spend an afternoon.

"Dancing man" is a tedious, sentimental bore. Moreover, the reviewer is specious. A bit of self-serving clap trap, the one review posted for this ludicrous and stupid novel would lead one to believe that there is merit to this badly written, self-indulgent nonsense.

Only a bit less tiresome than Chocolate Days, Popsicle Weeks, Hannibal's so-called claim to fame, which is also out of print, "Dancing man" never dances. ...

Although Hannibal's Chocolate Days, Popsicle Weeks has garnered much praise, Dancing Man, for me, endures through the years. I first read this book in high school, and now am older than its' protagonist, Ben "Apples" Appleyard. The setting is the mid-1970's and Apples, fed up with life in New York, takes over his late grandfather's house in coastal Massachusetts. Through recalling his childhood days there, his kid brother's similar growing struggles, and his relationship with his wife, Billie, he comes to resolve what the next stage of his life will be. Additionally, he eloquently deals with issues of friendship, marriage, and death. Although the novel takes place in the 1970's, the story has many parallels in these days of overwork, corporate downsizing, and shifting family dynamics. I am surprised that no one in Hollywood has made a movie of this gem, but that would damage this old friend for me. The battered edition I own is a longtime favorite I revisit every year and will soon share with my daughter. (By the way, I eventually wound up living for a time in my late grandfather's house!)