Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
39th out of 693 books
—
848 voters
Dancer from the Dance
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...more
Paperback, 250 pages
Published
December 18th 2001
by Harper Perennial
(first published 1978)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
3,000)
I first read "Dancer From The Dance" long, long ago, in my days at New Haven. Someone at the old Atticus Books recommended it as "the gay Gatsby". It is that, very much so: a novel of doomed romanticism, memory and all its traps, and dreams of new identity. It's set in the lost NYC of the early/mid-'70s, in the gay club world that's lost almost recall. That world was alien to me, but I shared the clubland belief in the redemptive power of dance and the enchantments of beauty (female beauty, for...more
Holleran's debut is a study in ambivalence; but, then, all good satires are. With luxuriant, effortless prose Holleran takes us through the world of the gay circuit circa the 1970s. Here is a world built upon the pretense of fleeting beauty, saturnine lovers and the mass delusion that dancing possesses a redemptive power, and peopled by those legendary archetypes: The sanguine queen, here embodied by the droll Sutherland, and the hopeless romantic turned rentboy, Malone. This is no scathing crit...more
2 likes · like · see review
I'd heard about this book forever and finally got around to reading it. I waffled between liking it and appreciating it as I was reading it. The writing is unique and effective. But I felt like I was reading the same twenty pages over and over and over again. Which is, ultimately, the point. It's indulgent but the book is about indulgence. It's frustating but the book is about frustration. Sometimes I'd get swept away by it and other times left completely cold. So it worked. A bold way to tell a...more
A beautiful & sad book all about Corinthinians 13:11. "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
In this case, the childish things are whoring it up in post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS NYC, a fun time if ever there was one. The idolatry of youth & beauty leave little option for the adult man: either become the old guy at the club, leave Manhattan, or go out in a blaze of glory & the characters o...more
In this case, the childish things are whoring it up in post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS NYC, a fun time if ever there was one. The idolatry of youth & beauty leave little option for the adult man: either become the old guy at the club, leave Manhattan, or go out in a blaze of glory & the characters o...more
2 likes · like · see review
I have just retread this novel, more than thirty years since I did the first time. Once again, I am ambivalent. I almost stopped reading it two-thirds of the way through, so tiresome Sutherland was and so predictable Malone had become. But I kept going because at times Holleran is such a good writer (even if his self-pity is nearly unbearable). I moved to NYC in the 1970s, but after the Twelfth Floor had closed and the Everhard Baths had burnt down. No one listened to "Law of the Land" anymore,...more
Andrew Holleran *does* have beautiful prose and an unusual story that, at times, begs to unfold. It's a kind of teaser with a lot of qualifications and mysterious details along the way before we ascertain its central story as a kind of Midnight Cowboy-type pair, gallavanting around town, trying to make meaning from Life along the way. Be patient as a series of comical letters weaves the reader, finally, to the central story. It's very much to his credit that you follow the narrative eloquence an...more
This is one of my favorite novels. I know it's an oft-made comparison for any book revolving around a sensitive younger male, but it's definitely a gay Gatsby, except that, on top of a failed American dream, you also have the failed homosexual dream — to live fast and love. Just like Gatsby, this novel's prose is incredibly lyrical, but varies enough to propel the story, e.g. it lapses into long lists at times (perhaps mirroring the effects of the character's speed use). Malone becomes engrossed...more
Dancer from the Dance is not so much a love story, but a story about love. To be more specific, it is about a love that dare not speak its name but, also, a love that may sing, dance, fuck, or do whatever it pleases, so long as it keeps to itself. And that is where the real story lies--in a love that cannot separate itself from the world it lives in, a love that cannot help but speak its name. We follow Malone, a man awakening to the feelings within himself, who can't seem to find a proper mode...more
Once upon a time, I didn’t know there was a genre called gay literature. Not being gay myself, perhaps this is understandable—but not forgivable. When I discovered this rich world, the first book I read was this one. It’s not likely that anyone who knows anything about gay lit hasn’t read this book, so I’ll just offer the ways in which it affected me rather than try to describe the book itself.
The Stonewall riots weren’t even a decade behind the timeframe of this story, and in the eyes of someon...more
The Stonewall riots weren’t even a decade behind the timeframe of this story, and in the eyes of someon...more
This novel is probably my favorite American novel from the post-war period. I would give it fifty stars if I could. I just re-read it because it's been a few years and as sometimes happens, I was reduced to shock and tears that some book-lover I was talking to hadn't even heard of it, which led me to ask if it still lived up to my own hype. In short, it definitely does. The language is beautiful, ornate, and erudite, but also raunchy and hilarious and witty (in the old British tradition) as Holl...more
This novel, so different from what I usually read, so unique in nature, is perhaps also the best novel I have ever read in my short life.
I don't think there is a need for me to rattling on about how beautiful the prose is and how vivid the imagery is and how much I admire the author to be able to pull up something splendid as this novel. These has been discussed over and overa again, not only in goodreads, but also on numerous blogs newspapers and magazines. It is already very well-known for it...more
I don't think there is a need for me to rattling on about how beautiful the prose is and how vivid the imagery is and how much I admire the author to be able to pull up something splendid as this novel. These has been discussed over and overa again, not only in goodreads, but also on numerous blogs newspapers and magazines. It is already very well-known for it...more
Quite an interesting book, probably for the more advanced readers.
I myself am not an advanced reader and because so had a bit of trouble reading it due to the style of writing. Don't get me wrong it is clear how the author writes, however because I have never encountered this style of writing, i got confused. However in saying that, I did quite enjoy the fantastic imagery that was created and the fantastic scenes created through word painting.
Now don't be mis-lead by the title like I was. I was...more
I myself am not an advanced reader and because so had a bit of trouble reading it due to the style of writing. Don't get me wrong it is clear how the author writes, however because I have never encountered this style of writing, i got confused. However in saying that, I did quite enjoy the fantastic imagery that was created and the fantastic scenes created through word painting.
Now don't be mis-lead by the title like I was. I was...more
I loved this book completely. It's humorous and achey, nostalgic and crude and poetic and so, so human. I've rarely read so close and vivid a portrayal of a subculture that, in that particular incarnation, doesn't exist anymore - that is already flavoured with the nostalgia of history, although it was only a few decades ago (fittingly, this copy fell to bits in my hands as I read!). It drew me in completely, not through the characters (which is rare, for me) but through the language and setting,...more
first off--it's been forever since i've read a novel. second--it took me no time at all to understand that this was "literature" and not some trashy recounting of promiscuous sex, drugs, and fire island. third--i was blown away with this book. i couldn't help thinking after reading it. the characters were exquisitely developed, and the prose was surprisingly fluid. the characters, and goings-on of the book was raw. i found myself identifying with aspects of all the characters and scenes. after r...more
Unbashfully gay, Dancer from the Dance is an amazing book, a portrait of a 70's gay world that in some aspects seems so different than today, but in some aspects, nothing has changed. Gone are the worry free days about diseases and doomed outlook--mostly--but the drugs and the parties stayed.
The writing is over-the-top melodramatic--exemplifies the purple prose we are told to avoid these days--but incredibly fun to read. Yet, the tone seemed apt for the narrator, also a circuit queen whose voic...more
The writing is over-the-top melodramatic--exemplifies the purple prose we are told to avoid these days--but incredibly fun to read. Yet, the tone seemed apt for the narrator, also a circuit queen whose voic...more
Not sure if I buy into the structure of the narrative (how the narrator knows so much information he's technically not privy to - I know he's constructing it based on gossip though...) but the story itself is interesting. Malone remains quiet, aloof, and yet passionate - we get descriptions of him as soon as people fall in love with him (which apparently everyone does). The narrative itself doesn't become speedy and interesting really until Sutherland enters and pontificates theories and showcas...more
Dancer was written with a focus on defining love for and within gay culture and subculture of New York's 70's. I could see elements of Edmund White's Forgetting Elena in this work with its cast of characters, drama amidst parties on Fire Island, current drug trends, etc...The two characters, Malone and Sutherland, are two belles of New York's party curcuit. Their mythical presence during this era is written as if they were unicorns or creatures not really made for this world. Their "outside look...more
A book I've read several times, although not lately. At one point in my life, when I was supposed to be studying for an exam, I would re-read this book instead. Now, I'm scared to read it again, in case it no longer lives up to what I remember.
When I first purchased this book, at what was then called a "bookstore" (yes, I am dating myself), the young female clerk was kind of flirty, and then when she took a look at the book I was buying, became all flustered and awkward. And no longer friendly....more
When I first purchased this book, at what was then called a "bookstore" (yes, I am dating myself), the young female clerk was kind of flirty, and then when she took a look at the book I was buying, became all flustered and awkward. And no longer friendly....more
Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the Dance first published in 1978 is a story of the post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS era of the gay NYC scene. Considered by many an important part of gay literature, the novel is told in the third person and is centered around the lives of two characters. Malone is a strikingly handsome young man from the Midwest who abandons the practice of law and his heterosexual façade initally to pursue his dream of perfect m/m romantic love, eventually submerging himself in the decad...more
The point of the novel is proven through the way it is told; the entire story is like sinking in to a hot, sweaty, musky haze. Decadent would be a way of describing the language used. The story of a man who is in love with love, who chases the ideal of love as it's found in classic romances and not the stinking, fallible, funny way that relationships really are.
It's been called the 'Gay Gatsby' and in many ways this is perfectly apt, it uses the pursuit of love as the American Dream and details...more
It's been called the 'Gay Gatsby' and in many ways this is perfectly apt, it uses the pursuit of love as the American Dream and details...more
Magnificent. I'll get the grumbles out first so I can get to gushing, but all the grumbles come with caveats. The book is, perhaps, not well-plotted. It's more meditative, and it doesn't so much matter what happens in the moment as how it builds to a larger arc and commentary on a subset of male, gay culture. I'm also not sure about the framing devices. That's right, plural. At first it made entering the story challenging, but by the end I was completely sold and understood why it's necessary an...more
To start with, I had this book on my to-read shelf for at least 15 years (I cannot remember when I bought it within a 5 year period.) I carried it over the course of several moves, one of which was to another country. At some point, I realized it was the oldest book on the to-read shelf. I decided that now really was the time to read it or get rid of it.
I will be keeping this book for the next 15 years. It is as the reviews claim: beautifully written, evocative, and hilarious. I laughed on the t...more
I will be keeping this book for the next 15 years. It is as the reviews claim: beautifully written, evocative, and hilarious. I laughed on the t...more
I remember the shock and recognition I experienced when I first read this book almost 30 years ago in Corvallis, Oregon. I picked it off the bookstore shelf because I recognized the W.B. Yeats poem from which the title is taken.
"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...more
"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...more
I read this solely for my book club with very few expectations. I was surprised by how much it touched me. It is a deceiving novel, seemingly fun, shallow and frivilous it draws you into this hidden world with voyeuristic curiousity. You come to like and relate (somewhat) to most of the characters, who on first description many would rule out immediately. Yet at another level, the author explores aspects of humanity, community, isolation and relationships in a non-pretentious manner, so that rea...more
Love, love will tear us apart again and so sung Joy Divison and in this novel Malone is ripped to pieces. Set in the 1970's Manhattan, Dance From The Dance is a rueful testament of the times in the post-Stonewall gay community. Tha main character Malone leaves his cookie-cutter middle upper class WASPish life to become a full time denizen in New York's gay world. It is there that he teams up with Sutherland, the necessary Queen who helps him on his futile, yet honorable, journey to seek love. Af...more
1 like · like · see review
Intensely beautiful and poignant, a book whose music and color will illuminate your mind for months and years, a book which makes available to the reader another, shimmering, pre-AIDS world in all its gore and glory. Sharp to the point of pain at times, then pointlessly gorgeous... shrill and witty, darkly brilliant, drawing a careful, lyrical line between the ecstasy of religious feeling and the ecstasy of sex and dance - an imperative book. Absolutely necessary.
I remember when I first picked up this book in Santa Barbara, turned the first page I couldn't put it down. The feeling was one of a different kind sexual awakening, like I had somehow missed a whole culture of exciting men. I know that I became obsessed with books about gay men thereafter. But now, for the life of me I can't remember a thing about the book except it was beautiful, electrifying, luminous and poetic.
Remarkable how influential this novel was, how so much of its tone has shaped gay consciousness and discourse over the last two generations. It's set in the fast and furious sexual and social world of lower Manhattan and Fire Island in the 1970s. "Dancer" pre-dates the onslaught of AIDS/HIV, but even so, an elegaic atmosphere of memory and loss pervades its pages. Certainly the novel reflects the rampant coupling and promiscuity that was the rule in the post-1960s era of Gay Liberation. But in a...more
It was a fairly engaging read. And I bet there are levels to it I just didn't pick up on. But, yeah, they missed me either way. It's supposed to be a watershed novel but I don't quite know why. All the same, I acknowledge the subject matter was probably never so critically appreciated before this book, so it should be read as a matter of history. I don't know. I'd love to know what other people think.
It was interesting to read a book about gay life in the 1970s, written in the 1970s and not memories written 30 years later. Malone irritated me somewhat because he was such a dreamer and had no grasp of reality; I realize the '70s were a completely different time and people were different back then (I remember well, I was a teenager then) but they weren't so completely out of touch as he was. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book and the way it portrayed life on the gay circuit.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Andrew Holleran is the pseudonym of Eric Garber, a novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is a prominent novelist of post-Stonewall gay literature. He was a member of The Violet Quill, a gay writer's group that met briefly from 1980-81.
More about Andrew Holleran...
Share This Book
3 trivia questions
More quizzes & trivia...
“Dreams decompose, darling, <...> like anything else. And they give off gases, some of which are poisonous and all of which are unpleasant, and so one goes away from the place in which the dreams were dreamed, and are now decomposing before your very eyes. Otherwise, you might die, dear, of monoxide poisoning.”
—
2 people liked it
More quotes…
Apr 25, 2013 11:14am
I'm also quite a fan of his "Grief" and "In September the Light Changes".
Steven wrote: "what a great review, especially c...more
Apr 25, 2013 06:13pm