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Paperback
Publisher: Plume
One of the most important works of gay literature, this haunting, brilliant novel is a seriocomic remembrance of things past -- and still poignantly present. It depicts the adventures of Malone, a beautiful young man searching for love amid New York's emerging gay scene. From Manhattan's Everard Baths and after-hours discos to Fire Island's deserted parks and lavish orgies, Malone looks high and low for meaningful companionship. The person he finds is Sutherland, a campy quintessential queen -- and one of the most memorable literary creations of contemporary fiction. Hilarious, witty, and ultimately heartbreaking, Dancer from the Dance is truthful, provocative, outrageous fiction told in a voice as close to laughter as to tears.
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| Hauntingly Lyrical Prose |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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So well written, it will make your heart ache. It's an ode to our inhuman infatuation with beauty. Holleran has a passion for prose that makes the story jump off the page. This is story telling at its finest.
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| "Indifference is the great Aphrodisiac." says the queen. |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Holleran is 'old school' gay writer. He can write an excellent gay novel without any graphic sex! The story he tells is everything!
Touching sensitive novel of a man called Malone, who comes from wealth and privilege and carves out a niche for himself as a successful, hardworking lawyer. His work is everything but leaves him empty and alone.
Then one summer, our lonely virgin, Malone, helps a gardener every day after work...and enjoys it. Why then is Malone tearful and mournful when the gardener leaves?
He has an epiphany!! He is gay! This beautiful untouched man decides to experience gay life and gay men. He quits everything and moves to New York.
Malone, (the man who doesn't know how beautiful he is), is an enigma in New York...polite,gay, beautiful,sweet,hot and nice to everyone.
Holleran has a wonderful literary gift of putting out phrases that can sum up the feelings of gay men in terms that are easy to understand.
eg."Remember that the vast majority of homosexuals are looking for a superman to love and find it very difficult to love anyone merely human, which we unfortunately happen to be."
"The point is that we are not doomed because we are homosexual, we are doomed only if we live in despair because of it.."
He describes the life of gays in New York and their favorites haunts where they were happiest..Fire Island in the summer, the Everard Baths, the discoteques before they were discovered, the endless round of parties that you could never go to until at least 2am!
Holleran depends upon his words and turns of phrases to appeal to not only the homosexual but hetero females like me and makes an excellent well-developed story.
I love Holleran's writing! They draw the reader into the enigmatic world of gays...their codes,their lifestlye,their mantra and even their cruelty toward each other.
Sensitive,stunning,cruel,loving..the world of the gay man in 70's New York is not easy..but Malone makes it look easy.
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| Beautiful and grim |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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Holleran is a masterful writer with some beautiful writing, but his work here and later often seems relentlessly grim. This book is a bit self-consciously Fitzgeraldesque, with a few mentions of "Dutch sailors" seeming like a riff on the last passages of "The Great Gatbsy." A lot of the prose is interior, not much plot.
This isn't a book to read if you're disenchanted with contemporary urban gay life and want to see how things were better "back then." If drug- and booze-addled, hyper-promiscuous adults irritate you in real life, if adults whose every other word is "darling" or "fabulous" annoy you, if you don't like adults who refer to each other by camp pseudonyms, or if references to feces on someone's lips aren't your bag, you probably won't enjoy this book.
Like all lasting fiction, however, the book was ahead of its time in foreshadowing the destructiveness of much of the behavior chronicled here, and its lessons are relevant more than ever, 30 years later.
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| Dated but still engaging and relevant |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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Written in the window between the Stonewall uprising and the discovery of HIV, the book brings to life a gay-ghettoed crew of colorful, fascinating characters, doing this better in my opinion than the Boys in the Band.
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| Lived to tell the tale |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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I lived through the era that AH writes of, it was an astonishing time, and he wrote an astonishing book. If you haven't read it, do yourself a big favor and do so immediately.
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