My second Peirene book in as many weeks, as I’m trying to prioritise a few of my translated unread books. I didn’t like this one nearly as much as The Empress and the Cake, which was already a bit of an odd one. Dance by the Canal is a disjointed and jarring story that flips between coming of age and the downward spiral of a once prosperous doctor’s daughter who finds herself living under a bridge. I think part of the reason this novella didn’t work for me was that I’m not fully familiar with the historical context. I stopped reading a lot of German historical fiction years ago as I found myself tiring of it, oversaturated. This book is strange and unnerving, confusing and not in a good way, I did enjoy the writing and some of the coming-of-age passages, but overall I’d say underwhelmed.