The ache and the curse of gay men living the life. Yet living with profound humanity and sympathy. Keen detail showing the seventies: the music, the clothes, the parties, the baths. Hot summer nights in New York. ( )

Remarkable how influential this novel was, how so much of its tone has shaped gay consciousness and discourse over the last two generations. It's set in the fast and furious sexual and social world of lower Manhattan and Fire Island in the 1970s. "Dancer" pre-dates the onslaught of AIDS/HIV, but even so, an elegaic atmosphere of memory and loss pervades its pages. Certainly the novel reflects the rampant coupling and promiscuity that was the rule in the post-1960s era of Gay Liberation. But in a larger sense, "Dancer from the Dance" is about the Education of Americans. It echoes earlier novels about initiation and enlightenment set in New York, most notably "The Great Gatsby." Like the Fitzgerald, "Dancer" is terribly disillusioning. In American culture, those who seek to go "over the rainbow" ultimately realize that Oz is an illusionary world of people wearing green-tinted glasses.... ( )

Dancer from the Dance offers no real sex scenes, and only the most fragile plot: the distant rise and fall of Malone and Sutherland who illuminate the gay scene for a few years in Manhattan. But what a rarefied scene! It is described in some of the most transcendently beautiful writing you're ever likely to ... please click for full review with no spoilers of Dancer from the Dance ( )

Not only dated, but a very tiring novel that seems to reiterate it's themes over and over with characters that are anything but admirable or anyone you would want to know. Prides itself on being the ultimate chronicling of the pre-Aids gay NYC in the 70's but doesn't hold up today. ( )

I have read only a part of this novel, having found it too oppressive to continue for the moment.