DANCING IN THE VOID, the new novel by Robert Edward Levin, is the story of Hubbell Webster, a man confined by the torment of self-examination. Immobilized, ineffectual, inert, estranged from all hope, his is a world where the moments of each day, drawn from his mind’s eye, without color or sense, fall like a stutterer’s words, and the consequences of his life are as forgettable as the stoic faces in a passing crowd. To imagine, to dream a way out, to extricate himself from a life so absurdly rooted – to take aim at his insanity and reconstitute all sense of proportion so as to propel him among the strong and unfettered – to no longer awaken to a day certain to sputter, stall, stop, fueling him with a distressing sense of nothing more to follow, is his lone chance for survival. So Hubbell escapes, embarking on a journey treacherous and uncertain; one that stretches from the height of the human spirit to the depths of human despondency, leaving between, a trail of laughter and tears.
