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kevincanada's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
angela_amman's review against another edition
5.0
Despite my abiding love for 80s music and staunch loyalty to Madonna in all of her iterations, my actual memories of the 1980s involve suburban roller skating rinks and Cabbage Patch dolls. At Danceteria delves into the side of the 1980s I didn’t live: the early days of the AIDS epidemic and the insidious effect the disease had on the lives of the gay men trying to navigate their lives between the pulsing beat of club culture and the uncertainty of a new reality.
Walker places celebrities into fictional situations, situations in which their appearance startles. Against the backdrop of dance music and the energy of New York City, their celebrity becomes secondary to their humanity, but they can never be completely disentangled from their public selves.
In “Jackie and Jerry and the Anvil,” probably my favorite of the seven stories, Jackie Kennedy Onassis observes, “If I were you, Jerry, I’d do it all. I’d do everything.” We feel the “if” viscerally, knowing Jackie O could not, in fact, do everything, and Walker’s prose makes us nostalgic for all the bits of everything we have never done either.
Sparse, yet evocative, At Danceteria and Other Stories highlights the harsh beauty present in the painful reality of aging, sickness, and fading relevancy. My own nostalgia can’t compete with the collection of stories, and perhaps that’s why it hit me as hard as it did. Each of our moments, each of our realities, can only be experienced by us, and maybe by listening to and understanding the parallel lives of those around us, we can come to a better understanding of the world in which we live.
Walker places celebrities into fictional situations, situations in which their appearance startles. Against the backdrop of dance music and the energy of New York City, their celebrity becomes secondary to their humanity, but they can never be completely disentangled from their public selves.
In “Jackie and Jerry and the Anvil,” probably my favorite of the seven stories, Jackie Kennedy Onassis observes, “If I were you, Jerry, I’d do it all. I’d do everything.” We feel the “if” viscerally, knowing Jackie O could not, in fact, do everything, and Walker’s prose makes us nostalgic for all the bits of everything we have never done either.
Sparse, yet evocative, At Danceteria and Other Stories highlights the harsh beauty present in the painful reality of aging, sickness, and fading relevancy. My own nostalgia can’t compete with the collection of stories, and perhaps that’s why it hit me as hard as it did. Each of our moments, each of our realities, can only be experienced by us, and maybe by listening to and understanding the parallel lives of those around us, we can come to a better understanding of the world in which we live.
dianametzger's review against another edition
5.0
Stories that transport you back to a time to NYC in the 70s and 80s with celebrities you thought you knew that in these stories feel like friends. Intimate and unforgiving; these stories will stick with you.
joe2d2's review against another edition
4.0
nuanced, thoughtful, and well researched imagined meetings between gay icons of the 80's, in the nightclubs they presided over, just as AIDS began to sweep in. chronicles the beginning of the end of an era.
eriknoteric's review
2.0
This book is at base a very creative engagement with the pop culture of the 80s - intermixing broader social commentary regarding the AIDS crisis with memories of celebrities past. That being said, I am still straining to figure out the point - why did Princess Di go to this fictional gay club? What's the point of Jackie O hanging out with the gardener from "Grey Gardens" at a NYC leather bar? What are readers supposed to grab from this playful narrative engagement? For me, at least, the answer is still utterly unclear.
The only story in this book that didn't engage with a celebrity protagonist instead tried to playfully engage with the idea that AIDS didn't discriminate based on attractiveness. While I certainly see the point of writing such a story, the way it was presented ("Hot Guy Disease" becomes AIDS) is far to on the nose and in many ways does not accomplish what I think the author wishes it had accomplished.
Perhaps, in the end, this whole situation could have been mediated through a much more technically sophisticated use of metaphor - something both the author and his editor should have caught before going to print. In some places, the use of metaphor is so clunky and absurd that a reader had to revisit sentences several times (My favorite is still the one where he compares saying someone's name to pronouncing the name of a deadly venereal disease? What? How does one pronounce that? Huh?)
An interesting try at reflecting on the beauty and horror of one of the most drastic decades of the 20th Century, "Danceteria" ultimately fell short in both technique and creativity.
The only story in this book that didn't engage with a celebrity protagonist instead tried to playfully engage with the idea that AIDS didn't discriminate based on attractiveness. While I certainly see the point of writing such a story, the way it was presented ("Hot Guy Disease" becomes AIDS) is far to on the nose and in many ways does not accomplish what I think the author wishes it had accomplished.
Perhaps, in the end, this whole situation could have been mediated through a much more technically sophisticated use of metaphor - something both the author and his editor should have caught before going to print. In some places, the use of metaphor is so clunky and absurd that a reader had to revisit sentences several times (My favorite is still the one where he compares saying someone's name to pronouncing the name of a deadly venereal disease? What? How does one pronounce that? Huh?)
An interesting try at reflecting on the beauty and horror of one of the most drastic decades of the 20th Century, "Danceteria" ultimately fell short in both technique and creativity.
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