Dancer from the Dance

"An astonishingly beautiful book. The best gay novel written by anyone of our generation."--Harper's "Through the sweat and haze of longing come piercing insights - about the closeness of gay male friendship, about the vanity and imperfections of men. The more one reads the novel, we realise that what Holleran has given us is our very own queer (queerer?) Great Gatsby: its decadence, its fear, its violence, its ecstasy, its transience."--The Guardian Andrew Holleran's landmark novel of a young man's search for love and companionship in New York's emerging gay world in the 1970s, with a new introduction by Garth Greenwell. Young, astonishingly beautiful, and tired of living a lie, Anthony Malone trades life as a seemingly straight small-town lawyer for the decadence of New York's emerging gay scene--an odyssey that takes him from Manhattan's Everard baths and after hour discos, to lavish orgies on Fire Island and parks after dark. Rescuing Malone from a possessive lover and shepherding him through his immersion in this life of fierce joys and cheap truths is the flamboyant Sutherland, a high-camp quintessential queen. But for Malone, the endless city nights and Fire Island days are close to burning out, and despite Sutherland's abundant attentiveness and glittering world-weary wisdom, Malone soon realizes what he is truly looking for may not be found in these beautiful places, where life is crowded, and people are forever outrunning their own desires and death.

About the Author :
Andrew Holleran's first novel, Dancer from the Dance, was published in 1978. He is also the author of the novels Nights in Aruba and The Beauty of Men; a book of essays, Ground Zero (reissued as Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited); a collection of short stories, In September, the Light Changes; and a novella, Grief.

Review :
"An astonishingly beautiful book. The best gay novel written by anyone of our generation." -- Harper's magazine "Holleran summons up the most lyrical prose imaginable. The novel is a banquet." -- Boston Globe "We have never been to Fire Island and we have never lived on the Lower East Side, but we have looked for love and we are growing older, and this book is the story of our life." -- New York magazine "Compelling characters and a vision of society, straight and gay." -- Village Voice "Beautifully written, evocative, and hilarious. . . . Holleran has the uncanny ability to combine emotional abandon and high comedy." -- New Republic "Superb . . . erotic heat percolates through these pages." -- New York Times Book Review "Through the sweat and haze of longing come piercing insights - about the closeness of gay male friendship, about the vanity and imperfections of men. The more one reads the novel, we realise that what Holleran has given us is our very own queer (queerer?) Great Gatsby: its decadence, its fear, its violence, its ecstasy, its transience." -- The Guardian "Andrew Holleran's 'Dancer from the Dance, '. . . is bathed in melancholy gorgeousness, as attuned as any of its characters to 'the animal bliss of being alive.'" -- The New Yorker "Nothing could be more beautiful than Holleran's tableaux of New York, those hot summer city nights when lonely men sit on their stoops or their fire escapes and stare at that endless parade of unattainable lovers." -- Boston Globe "Dancer from the Dance accomplished for the 1970's what The Great Gatsby achieved for the 1920's ― the glamorization of a decade and a culture." -- Edmund White "A life changing read for me. Describes a New York that has completely disappeared and for which I longed--stuck in closed-on-Sunday's London." -- Rupert Everett "The first gay novel everybody read. . . .It's the story of youth and beauty and money and drugs. But overarchingly...the story of a new queer future." -- Michael Cunningham, New York Times Magazine "Dancer From the Dance holds a sacred place in gay literary history for its seductive glimpse of post-Stonewall and pre-AIDS New York City." -- The Nation "A hymn to gay liberation in the city, and to male beauty." -- Darryl Pinckney, New York Times Style magazine, T "A book of spirited elegance and energy." -- New York magazine "One of the most famous works of gay literature." -- New York Times "Set in New York in a pre-AIDS era, Holleran brilliantly captures a generation of men for whom hedonism is never-ending, while desire, loneliness and a restless wish for love continually jostle." -- British Vogue "For countless gay men of a certain age, and many others in generations that followed, Andrew Holleran's 1978 debut novel "Dancer From The Dance" is held in the highest regard. Groundbreaking, humorous, sexy, and tragic, with "Dancer From The Dance" Holleran paved the way for the gay literary boom of the early-to-mid 1980s that continues to this day. In other words, 45 years after its original publication, Holleran's essential novel is as relevant as ever." -- Washington Blade