Dancing with the Tiger

It begins when a meth-addicted grave robber digs up the death mask of Montezuma, setting off a violent struggle for its possession. There is the drug lord who employs him, who would kill for that mask. The expat American collector, sinister and possibly mad, for whom masks are almost a fetish. There is the respected curator who, for a fee, will provide provenances for his country’s looted artifacts. And his long-suffering housekeeper—deeply religious, a lesbian in a culture of machismo, who despises herpatron. There is the young painter Salvador, sensual and mercurial, keeping secrets. And there is the grave-digger himself, in over his head and running for his life.
Above all, there is Anna Ramsey, a woman with a history of bad choices. A cherished only child, she was traumatized by her mother’s early death and her father’s descent into alcohol. For her, Montezuma’s mask is a way to restore her father’s damaged reputation and perhaps to recover the all-embracing love she knew when her family was still whole. A deeply wounded woman, Anna is nonetheless without self-pity, and her toughness and mistakes make her a heroine for our times.
Taut, acidly witty, menacingly erotic, and often absolutely terrifying: DANCING WITH THE TIGER is a literary thriller of propulsive force. It introduces a powerful storyteller who is also a gifted stylist.

Lili Wright spent a decade as a journalist before enrolling in Columbia University’s MFA program in nonfiction. In 1999, degree in hand, she accepted a tenure track position at Depauw University. While she was still writing nonfiction, her work appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, Newsweek, the Chicago Tribune,and the Baltimore Sun. Learning to Float, her memoir of a trip from Maine to Key West, was included on The Washington Post'sbest summer reads list. Dancing with the Tiger took her five years and thirty drafts.