Chris Routledge is a writer and editor. A long time ago he wrote a PhD thesis on
Raymond Chandler and a bit more recently he has written and edited
books about American history and culture, children's literature,
linguistics and the philosophy of language, and about beer. His book Cains: The Story of Liverpool in a Pint will be published in September 2008.

Horace McCoy was once talked about as an equal to Ernest
Hemingway. He was known in France as 'the American existentialist' and
an edition of his first novel,
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
(1935) was even published by the French Resistance in 1944. McCoy wrote
five novels in all, but only this one has had any kind of lasting
influence and even then, not much. It is a nasty little tale, narrated
by a death row prisoner reflecting on his experiences as a participant
in a Hollywood dance marathon. Dance marathons, a Depression-era craze
that pitted dancing couples against one another to see who could dance
the longest, became in McCoy's novel a metaphor for American society
and its harsh economic reckoning. Overseen by a cruel and manipulative
promoter and an audience of inhumane voyeurs, the dancing couples sleep
standing up, barely able to move their bruised and swollen feet. Yet
they do keep moving in the hope that they might get noticed and
catapulted to fame and success. McCoy's novel
is about poverty, desperation, and the ability of dreams to push people
to the limits of their endurance. It is also a love story and the story
of an extraordinary, pragmatic act of compassion in an uncaring,
exploitative world.
This book sounds VERY interesting!
Posted by: DJ Kirkby | June 13, 2008 at 07:32 AM
DJ,
I couldn't agree more - I remember the film but have never read the book. Another one for the list!
Posted by: Gary Smailes | June 13, 2008 at 08:23 AM