Literary Fictions

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Horace McCoy was a little-known American writer who lived from 1897 to 1955. His most famous work was his 1935 novel They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?. It’s set entirely at a dance marathon in a seedy ballroom in Santa Monica, California, at the height of the Great Depression.

What’s a dance marathon, you might ask? It was where young people (and some not so young) danced (ballroom style) without surcease (with brief rest periods), before a paying audience. It was a test of the contestants’ endurance. As long as the contestants could keep going, they had a chance to win a thousand-dollar jackpot. If they stopped dancing or became ill, they were automatically disqualified. (If one member of a team dropped out, the other member had a certain amount of time to find another partner.) The idea was that the contestants, most of whom had no job and no place to live, would at least have a place to stay and food to eat as long as they stayed in the marathon. It could possibly go on for months, until only one couple was left standing.

The two main characters (dance contestants) are Gloria Beatty and Robert Styvesent. Gloria is a tried-and-failed movie actress, depressed and suicidal, who couldn’t get listed with Central Casting. Robert also has dreams of motion picture fame, but as a director instead of an actor. Gloria and Robert are sad, tired and disillusioned, and they don’t know what the future holds for them—probably only more shattered dreams and more heartache. We know from the start that the whole thing (the dance marathon or life in general) is not going to end well for them.

Many of the couples are eliminated with nightly “sprints” around the perimeter of the dance floor. You don’t have to be first in the sprint to remain in the marathon, but if you’re last, you’re going to get bounced. The teams struggle to hang on. Each believes they have a shot at the jackpot and—who knows?—there might be movie talent scouts in the audience any evening and someone will be “discovered.” It’s a brutal, demeaning spectacle—and the audience eats it up!

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? is the only American novel of the 1930s of its kind about a dance marathon. It’s a gritty slice of life about the down-side of Hollywood. There’s nothing sweet, hopeful or life-affirming about it. Only pain, failure and disappointment. It’s thoroughly fascinating.

Copyright © 2021 by Allen Kopp    

The Beauty of Men ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

The lead character in Andrew Holleran’s 1996 novel, The Beauty of Men, is a forty-seven-year-old homosexual named Lark. He lives in New York, until “the plague” comes along and changes everything, taking the lives of many (most) of his friends. When his mother has a terrible accident that leaves her completely paralyzed, he “escapes” from New York and goes to live with her in a small Florida town. (He rationalizes later in the book that she “had the accident” to take him out of the New York world of men, to a place where he would be “safe.”)

In the bleak Florida town where Lark lives, he is mostly alone, except for the several hours a day he spends in the nursing home where his mother is confined. The rest of the time he is on his own to reminisce about the friends who have died, read, watch television, and reflect on his wasted, unfulfilling life. He believes he is in love with a thirty-four-year-old man named Becker, with whom he had one tense sexual encounter. The problem with Becker is he doesn’t seem to live Lark very much and isn’t interested in seeing him again. Becker has a lover with a handlebar mustache—don’t you know?—and a pubescent daughter he is trying to raise without a mother.

In his loneliness, Lark humiliates himself by frequenting gay bars and bathhouses, where he is like a ghost because his hair has turned white and he is so much older than the rest of the men there. He also turns up frequently at the “boat ramp,” an isolated, wooded area where men go to meet each other for quick, anonymous sex. (Going to the boat ramp is demeaning and dangerous.) He’s hoping to hook up with Becker once again but, of course, that isn’t going to happen.

The plot of The Beauty of Men shifts back and forth between Lark’s frustrating and disappointing life and the problems he has in dealing with his paralyzed mother. She wants to return home to die, but if Lark allows that he will lose whatever freedom he has. Does he find happiness and fulfillment at the end of the novel? Don’t count on it. It’s a dark, realistic excursion into one man’s unhappy life. There will be no Hollywood ending.  

Copyright © 2021 by Allen Kopp