I started reading ‘Aliens’ to classes shortly after Family Dancing was published in the UK by King Penguin in 1986. I have received so many melodramatic stories over the years set in hospitals, especially about catastrophic injuries to characters. Pupils often assume sensational equals interesting. Leavitt’s story does indeed start in a hospital, as the narrator visits her damaged husband Alden while he undergoes rehabilitation after a car accident. But here the coolness of the narrative voice carries the distressing material easily. I also read it out to show how effectively the present tense can be used.

First published in Family Dancing, Knopf, 1984