Dance Prone is a novel about trauma, violence, and music, set during the 80s hardcore punk scene and in the present day. Neus Bauen are a post-punk band touring America, with frenzy and drink and drug fuelled gigs and hours in their tour bus. When one of their members is sexually assaulted and another suffers a gunshot wound, things start to alter for the band. And as the decades pass, the band members grow older, but are still haunted by trauma and by the violence that happened during their time on the road and subsequently.

The novel is written in a fluid style that reflect the protagonist's state of mind, with memory loss due to trauma, and the narrative moves between 1985 and the present day. This makes it often quite confusing to read, with characters not always distinct from each other, or not really described so they just become names to forget. Maybe this adds to the effect of the novel and the haziness surrounding some of the events, but it makes for a tough reading experience, taking a long time to even work out the main characters and their relationships. The dark subject matter provides a reflection on music scenes, violence, and the way that these scenes are reconstructed in memory, but this and the style make it quite unrelenting reading material.

For fans of books about fictional bands, this one brings depth and complication, looking at the trauma lurking behind the vision of a small band in a classic music scene. However, it had the issue that some novels about specific scenes or cultural moments do where they feel like an onslaught of characters, moments, and references that can be difficult to follow.