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cflinterman 's review for:
Dancer from the Dance
by Andrew Holleran
3.5*
On the back of my edition, there is a quote by Edmund White: "Dancer from the Dance accomplished for the 1970s what The Great Gatsby achieved for the 1920s - the glamorization of a decade and a culture."
I don't want to compare the two books, because I think it's unfair. But White does have a point here: Dancer from the Dance does have elements that remind of the Great Gatsby (which I loved, btw). The book is about the New York party scene of the 1970s and homosexual love, more particular one man being introduced to homosexual life in New York by another man. And there's tragic love.
Although I did quite enjoy the vivid image Holleran paints of the time, it was the glamorization that bothered me. Surely there must have been more to the time than homosexuals going to parties and everybody sucking everybody's cock at every opportunity? It all became a little too much repetition for me, as well as onesided. Was it all that much fun? Maybe it also has to do with the fact that I, as a reader in 2021, know what happened after (the eighties AIDS crisis, which Holleran in 1978 didn't know was going to happen), but I can't help thinking that I missed something a little more critical.
All in all, it was fun to read, but it didn't change my life.
On the back of my edition, there is a quote by Edmund White: "Dancer from the Dance accomplished for the 1970s what The Great Gatsby achieved for the 1920s - the glamorization of a decade and a culture."
I don't want to compare the two books, because I think it's unfair. But White does have a point here: Dancer from the Dance does have elements that remind of the Great Gatsby (which I loved, btw). The book is about the New York party scene of the 1970s and homosexual love, more particular one man being introduced to homosexual life in New York by another man. And there's tragic love.
Although I did quite enjoy the vivid image Holleran paints of the time, it was the glamorization that bothered me. Surely there must have been more to the time than homosexuals going to parties and everybody sucking everybody's cock at every opportunity? It all became a little too much repetition for me, as well as onesided. Was it all that much fun? Maybe it also has to do with the fact that I, as a reader in 2021, know what happened after (the eighties AIDS crisis, which Holleran in 1978 didn't know was going to happen), but I can't help thinking that I missed something a little more critical.
All in all, it was fun to read, but it didn't change my life.