Dancing Bears

• Incisive, humorous and heartbreaking oral histories of people living in formerly Communist countries holding fast to their former lives, from one of Poland’s finest journalists. • Like Anna Funder’s Stasiland or Svetlana Alexievich’s Secondhand Time, readers are guided through the aftereffects of authoritarian rule and the challenges of freedom via Szablowski’s immediate, heartwrenching stories of the people who lived through the collapse of Communism. • The bold and brilliant allegory at the centre of Dancing Bears is of bears raised and trained by Bulgarian Gypsies. With the fall of Communism, the bears were released into a wildlife refuge. But even today, whenever the bears see a human, they still get up on their hind legs to dance. • Dancing Bears traces the remarkable true stories of people throughout Eastern Europe and Cuba who, like the bears, are now free, but seem nostalgic for a time when they were not. • Szablowski is an award-winning Polish journalist—his reportage on illegal immigrants flocking to the EU won the European Parliament Journalism Prize, and his previous book about Turkey, The Assassin from Apricot City, won an English PEN Award. • This book comes at a pivotal moment for oral histories, following the success of 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature winner Svetlana Alexievich’s Secondhand Time. • For fans of Stasiland by Anna Funder, Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick and Tale of Two Cities by John Freeman.

A contemporary fable about a dancing bear, whose dreams of freedom keep her spirit alive despite the pain and degradation of her existence.

Nothing disturbs the peace of a French village until the arrival of a bear cub. Adopted by the orphaned Roxanne, he quickly becomes part of village life, and the village grows to be famous for its honey. Then a film company arrives to make a video starring Niki, the pop singer, as the Pied Piper.

Max, a dancing bear with the Moscow Circus, teaches his friend Boris how to dance.

*As heard on NPR’s All Things Considered* “Utterly original.” —The New York Times Book Review “Mixing bold journalism with bolder allegories, Mr. Szabłowski teaches us with witty persistence that we must desire freedom rather than simply expect it.” —Timothy Snyder, New York Times bestselling author of On Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom An incisive, humorous, and heartbreaking account of people in formerly Communist countries holding fast to their former lives, by the acclaimed author of How to Feed a Dictator For hundreds of years, Bulgarian Gypsies trained bears to dance, welcoming them into their families and taking them on the road to perform. In the early 2000s, with the fall of Communism, they were forced to release the bears into a wildlife refuge. But even today, whenever the bears see a human, they still get up on their hind legs to dance. In the tradition of Ryszard Kapuściński, award-winning Polish journalist Witold Szabłowski uncovers remarkable stories of people throughout Eastern Europe and in Cuba who, like Bulgaria’s dancing bears, are now free but who seem nostalgic for the time when they were not. His on-the-ground reporting—of smuggling a car into Ukraine, hitchhiking through Kosovo as it declares independence, arguing with Stalin-adoring tour guides at the Stalin Museum, sleeping in London’s Victoria Station alongside a homeless woman from Poland, and giving taxi rides to Cubans fearing for the life of Fidel Castro—provides a fascinating portrait of social and economic upheaval and a lesson in the challenges of freedom and the seductions of authoritarian rule. From the Introduction: “Guys with wacky hair who promise a great deal have been springing up in our part of the world like mushrooms after rain. And people go running after them, like bears after their keepers. . . . Fear of a changing world, and longing for someone . . . who will promise that life will be the same as it was in the past, are not confined to Regime-Change Land. In half the West, empty promises are made, wrapped in shiny paper like candy. And for this candy, people are happy to get up on their hind legs and dance.”

America is at a crossroads, and it may take a street-smart misfit to sort it all out. In this hilarious political satire, vignettes burlesquing the absurd and grotesque contortions of male chauvinism alternate with postmodern Lady Godivas parading alluringly and dreaming of retirement. Exponents of sexism and exploitation confront each other and slap each other’s resting bitch-faces. Exotic dancers in a strip club speak their minds. Tales of a wayward wienermobile, perils of aging and youthful blunders, spilling the beans, leaving gossipy stink scattered like broken winds. Tragicomic pratfalls of American ideals in an age of authoritarianism and rampant materialism take center stage, and a man who dreams of wearing a grizzly bear costume to go berserk in gives us the bird. The vixen narrator, lil Vireo, can tell no lies. She sees all and wears no disguise. A romp through life’s Strip-Club of pretenders and deniers fooling themselves while slapped in the rump. Politician dudes using parade costumes as messages, and strippers taking off symbolic garb redolent with our times—revealing our naked carnival of phantasmagorical human desires and fears.

From the early sixties to the late seventies, defensive end Ron McDole experienced football’s golden age from inside his old?school, two?bar helmet. During an eighteen?year pro career, McDole—nicknamed “The Dancing Bear”—played in over 250 games, including two AFL Championships with the Buffalo Bills and one NFL Championship with the Washington Redskins. A cagey and deceptively agile athlete, McDole wreaked havoc on football’s best offenses as part of a Bills defensive line that held opponents without a rushing touchdown for seventeen straight games. His twelve interceptions remain a pro record for defensive ends. Traded by the Bills in 1970, he was given new life in Washington as one of the most famous members of George Allen’s game?smart veterans known as “The Over?the?Hill Gang.” Through it all, McDole was known and loved by teammates and foes alike for his knowledge and skill on the field and his ability to have fun off it. In The Dancing Bear McDole the storyteller traces his life from his humble beginnings in Toledo, Ohio, to his four years at the University of Nebraska, his marriage to high school sweetheart Paula, and his long, accomplished professional career. He recounts the days when a pro football player needed an off?season job to pay the bills and teams had to drive around in buses to find a city park in which to practice. The old AFL and NFL blitz back to life through McDole’s straightforward stories of time when the game was played more for love and glory than for money.

 The 20th century is new and Russia is on the cusp of revolutionary change. In London, Gregori Lohmatski, an ardent big game hunter and son of a Russian estate owner, is suddenly and urgently summoned home. On the estate two men have been killed by a man-eating bear. Gregori invites John Sherwood, his American hunting companion, to join him in pursuit of the man eating bear. Sherwood is unaware that the Lohmatski men have been rumored to have the ability to change into bears. Events in Russia become more than a bear hunt, as Sherwood and Gregori’s revolutionary minded sister flee across Russia pursued by the police and the attacking were-bear.