Customer Reviews

Family Dancing

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'Family Dancing' is a collection of short stories written by David Leavitt when he was in his early twenties. It is remarkable thata young man can write with such sensitivity. The prose is very fluid, and the characterizations are quite realistic. Quite remarkable considering these are *short* stories, not novels. However these stories are somewhat uneven in their overall quality, and I think I know why.

David Leavitt is best known for writing gay fiction. In 'Family Dancing' about a third of the stories are gay-themed. But I find the gay characters in these stories, and even in his fine novel 'The Lost Language of Cranes', to be very two-dimensional. However Leavitt's observations of parents coping with dysfunctional lives, marriages, and children to be most affecting. In 'Family Dancing' there are a couple of simply wonderful, extremely moving stories about people living with cancer. These stories alone are worth the price of this book.

Bottom line: a mixed bag containing treasures. Recommended.

Reading these poignant stories is like watching 15 or so different versions of American Beauty. Beneath the surface in almost every family lie illness, infidelity, betrayals and anger. This is his first collection of stories and they make for an excellent collection. I had read his later books first like The Lost Language of Cranes which I think are stronger overall, but as a first collection, these stories are revealing.

Leavitt has a knack for exposing the underside of family relations. Many of his stories focus on husbands who leave their wives, but just as many focus on the effect these family disputes have on the children. Overall, these stories will leave you with a feeling of sadness -- he touches many nerves from cancer to men coming to terms with their sexuality, to abandoned sisters and brothers. I think Leavitt is a very sensitive writer with an eye for the problems that plague 20th century families.

This book is a wonderful collection of short stories about gay men. It is much more articulate and well-crafted that Leavitt's novel The Lost Language of Cranes: A Novel. I especially enjoyed 'Aliens', 'Danny in Transit' and 'Territory'. My favorite story in the collection was 'Dedicated', about a young woman who is drawn to, and used as a buffer, by two gay men.

Leavitt is one of the true modern masters of the short story--it is ashame his novels aren't quite as well done. Here is where Leavitt launched his career, to justified critical delight. These stories are near perfection--and our of a writer in his early 20s!--with well-drawn characters and serious themes, though sometimes playful treatments. Leavitt's preoccupations seem to be with the family, homosexuality, and cancer, but he has yet to make any of these topics stale. Highly recommended.

LIFE IN LEAVITT-TOWN In "The Lost Cottage," one of the stories in David Leavitt's debut collection, Family Dancing, the son of divorced parents dreams up names for the family's summer house: "Desperate Efforts," he thinks, or "Under the Weather." The names which he lists are just as appropriate as nicknames for the various men who people Leavitt's stories: the travelling Mr. Campbell of one story is "Seldom Inn"; the faithless Herb of another story experiences several "Weak Moments"; and there is the pathetic Allen who is "Beyond Hope." All the fathes in Leavitt's stories are weak men, and they have all disappointed or betrayed the other members of their families. Because of the shortcomings of the menfolk, there is not one successful marriage in these stories and there are many victims of the broken homes. In Leavitt-town, we meet fat, shy daughters and gaunt homosexual sons; we see marriages which are dead or dying; we watch parents who feel varying degrees of guilt, and children who experience differing amounts of anxiety. These tales show us that in order to have healthy children, one needs a stable home. There are so many threats to the home, both medical (many characters suffer from cancer) and emotional, that the children wind up as experience-devouring narcissists. Ironicially, in many stories it is the emotional force which splinters the family that acts to hold some semblance of a family together. Disappointment, anger, and jealousy are, after all, combinations of love and hate. The writing in Family Dancing is brilliant throughout. Considering the fact that David Leavitt was just 23 years old when he wrote this collection, it is surprising to find so many stories that ring true. In "Danny In Transit," a young boy turns more and more to television as his father's shortcomings become evident. In "Territory," a mother, president of Parents of Lesbians and Gays, reveals that her tolerance does not extend to actually seeing her son with another man. And in "Family Dancing," the title story, we see a troubled family going through a figurative ballet before finally engaging in a slow, circular dance on a makeshift dancefloor. Leavitt is a master of the metaphor, and he is liberal in presenting us with poignant moments. Although many stories are depressing, there are a few glimmers of hope in Leavitt-town. As the fathers fail their children, the power of imagination can help to save them. In "Out Here," it is the daughter who plays at being a horse and who has rejected the traiditional nuclear family who seems to bear the least scars from her parents' deaths. In another story, it is another creative daughter, Nina, who has imagined her own salvation at the hands of interplanetary aliens. These children still have hopes for the future, and they are the only fruits of what would otherwise have been fruitless marriages. This collection of stories must be understood within the new tradition of "private interest fiction." This is the sort of writing being done by Raymond Carver, Bobbie Anne Mason, and Frederick Barthelme, and which focuses primarily on relationships within a family. These new writers are moving away from political life and toward the failed rooms and broken vases of the merely personal. Indeed, it's all here: love, lust, General Hospital. Yes, there is love, and it is the type of love which reminds us that Eros is sore spelled backwards. Yes, some of these characters melt with lust, although they often begin to go soft at room temperature. And yes, there is General Hospital, but even David Leavitt can not tell us whether Monica is good or bad.

I had never heard of David Leavitt when, years ago, I picked up this book in a hurry at an airport bookstore because I liked the title. I have loved his short stories ever since, and have returned to this book more than once. Families of different types and with different issues are the focus of the stories. Several of his stories discuss gay men and their interactions with families, children struggling to make sense of problems and how cancer affects those around the person who has the disease. They are moving, absorbing and Leavitt seems to make an effort to provide every character with a chance to demonstrate what they are experiencing and what place they fill in the family.
I was disappointed a few years ago when Leavitt was accused of plagiarizing Stephen Spender in his novel, 'While England Sleeps,' but I haven't lost faith. His short stories are the best of his writing, in my opinion.

I was around 24 when I first read this amazing collection of stories and I was totally bowled over by it. On the surface was an identification--with both the young gay men who populated several of the stories, as well as with Leavitt himself, who was around the same age I was--but, I was also in love with his prose and empathy with all sorts of characters: straight and gay, young and old.

The first story, "Territory," (about a young man bringing his first boyfriend home to meet his mom) was the first "gay" short story published in The New Yorker magazine (when Leavitt himself was only 21) and I remember reading it over and over again, amazed at the seemingly simple story which covered so much emotional terrain.

It was the last story in the book, "Dedicated," which was the one that probably had the most affect on me though--as it was so much a story I wish I'd written. Telling the tale of 3 friends (Nathan, Celia and Andrew...characters Leavitt would visit twice more in the future, and, hopefully, will again some day) over the course of a weekend in the Hamptons. It's a story about love, friendship, jealousy, sex, desire, parents and children.

Leavitt went on to write other short stories and novels and non-fiction on numerous topics--and, probably, he's technically a better writer now than when he wrote these stories. And though I've enjoyed many of them, I'll likely always love this book (and his next one--the novel "The Lost Language of Cranes") more than anything else he'll ever write.

David was in his early twenties when this was published. His stories capture the essence of what goes on between people, period. Counting Months, which describes the last Thanksgiving of a mother with lymphoma and her worries about her children's future is a tour-de-force!

This was a wonderful collection of beautifully written stories. It is not wonder this, Leavitt's debut, brought so much critical acclaim along with a warm welcome of Leavitt to the Literary community. Of the nine stories contained, most were wonderfuly written (Leavitt has a way with words, and when reading his writing, it is like sipping a sweet drink that goes down smooth and cool.) The most wonderful stories in this volume are "Territory," "The Lost Cottage," "Danny in Transit," "Family Dancing," "Out Here," and "Dedicated. The only stories I didn't particularly like were "Counting Months," "Aliens," and "Radiation." And of these last, even they had their good qualities. This is a wonderful book and I recommend it to anyone who love good fiction.

I like the way the point of view moves from the individual to the public one, from the smallest to the biggest.