THE DANCING CHICKEN. Musgrave, Susan. Toronto, Methuen, 1987. 216pp, cloth, $19.95, ISBN 0-458-81180-7. CIP Adult Reviewed by Elinor Kelly Volume 16 Number 3 1988 May Susan Musgrave was noticed first for her poetry, then for a flamboyant lifestyle, and now for her fiction. The dancing chicken of the title is a peep-show exhibit that dances when you put a quarter in a slot and a few grains of rice fall on the chicken's head. This behaviour is very like the goings-on of the circle of characters in the west coast town who engage in a sort of continuous round game of Button, Button, who's got the condom box as they respond to the stimuli life or chance imposes. Musgrave can write and her creations can be very funny, but her picture of the life-style on the west coast is distastefully brutal, all sex, drink, frustration, mindless actions, and indecencies. Only the tough-minded could read the book twice over. For large fiction collections only and not for schools or smaller libraries. Elinor Kelly, Port Hope, Ont.