Dance on My Grave: A Life and a Death in Four Parts [Paperback]

Aidan Chambers (Author), John Palencar (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1995

Sixteen-year-old Hal realizes he is gay and has a wonderful summer romance with Barry, in a positive story about homosexuality and falling in love for the first time. Reprint. AB. SLJ. VY. PW.

Product Details

• Paperback: 251 pages
• Publisher: Trophy Pr (June 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0064405796
• ISBN-13: 978-0064405799
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,127,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great young adult book to read, January 5, 2000

By 

"bradleyic" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dance on My Grave: A Life and a Death in Four Parts (Paperback)

I first read this book when I was a freshman in high school. It couldn't have come along at a better time on my life...and I"m rereading it again and finding new stuff all the time. The hardest part of the book is getting used to the different words and phrases that someone young in America might not be used to. But that shouldn't trip the reader up terribly to enjoy the central theme of the story. Chambers writes about a boy who comes to love another boy. What is interesting is how he understands the underlying newness that Hal feels towards Barry, and how Hal deals with his feelings towards Barry. The book never takes a high road on the subject of being gay, but tells it matter of factly, the story about a boy falling in love with another boy. Readers will know they are not alone in how they feel. I read this from an isolated high school in rural Iowa and this book certainly helped me get through some rough times. I'd recommend it to young and old.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a real "TIME SLIP" !, August 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dance on My Grave: A Life and a Death in Four Parts (Paperback)

It must be (al least) the fifth time I'm reading this novel, since the first time I bought it, some five years ago, and each time I'm struck by its vividness and honesty: real people trying to meet each other, in a real world where feelings and yearning may find an answer one never imagined possible. As one of the other reviewers already mentioned, I too, coming from Holland and having worked in the States, need a dictionary to savour this book's english intricacies, but then the real gourmet doesn't go to a restaurant to still his hunger or to quench his thirst, but comes to satisfy his senses and enjoy the cheer of good company !

4.0 out of 5 stars Adult love and grief, September 8, 2008

By 

Raymond Mathiesen (Armidale, N.S.W., Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dance on My Grave: A Life and a Death in Four Parts ... (Paperback)

Hal Robinson is sixteen, has just finished his school exams and has no idea what he wants to do with his life. Will he stay on at school? If so what will he study? Or will he get a job like his father wants? Hal lives at Southend, the part of London where the Thames River meets the sea. One day he 'borrows' a friend's sail-boat without asking permission. A storm blows up and soon Hal capsizes the boat. Then into his life sails Barry Gorman, eighteen year old, expert sailor, who rescues Hal and who it seems will soon sort Hal's life out. Soon Hal finds himself falling deeply in love with Barry, and it seems his every fantasy is about to be fulfilled. But, as Hal reveals at the very beginning of the book, Barry's life is destined to be cut short.

This book is written in a quirky, interesting, experimental manner. The text consists of Hal's first person account, six "running reports" by Hal's social worker, two newspaper clippings, and a school essay. The personal account features "action replays" in which Hal goes over the scene he has just described filling in the psychological details that could not be included in the flow of action. One important theme to arise is the 'postmodern' question of how much a written account mirrors reality? Hal desperately wants to be honest, but no matter how much he tries his words fail to describe the true 'feeling' of events, or can be interpreted in a way that varies from the 'truth'.

While being an account of a death the book is often surprisingly funny. I found myself laughing out loud in several parts. Grief, however, inevitably takes the main stage at the end of the story, and is represented in some considerable depth. This is not really a tear-jerker though, as throughout the book we have always known that Barry will die.

Of course the book is also a description of first adult love, in all its depth and pain. As the story progresses Hal moves from confused teenager to wounded but wiser adult. While this could be described as a 'gay' story the book can be also enjoyed by 'straight' adolescent readers: love, death and truth are in fact universal themes no matter in what details we dress them. The story includes some sex but it is only very discretely referred to.

This is an English novel and some colloquialisms and cultural references are included which US audiences may find difficult to understand. There is not enough of this though to make the book inaccessible: in fact most of the text should be crystal clear.