The Sex Squad [Hardcover]

David Leddick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 1998

In the 1950's, seventeen-year old Harry Potter moves to Grennwich Village, NY to pursue a career as a ballet dancer. Professionally, he finds a place as a chorus dancer at the old Metropolitan Opera house and becomes a member of the "Sex Squad" --those chorus dancers well build enough to carry off the skimpy costumse in Aida. Personally, he quickly becomes the focul point in a tempestuous, complicated love triangle with two of his fellow dancer. Torn between passion and his true love--dancing--Harry must come to a decision about whom he loves, who he is, and what he is willing to sacrifice for the world of ballet.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The protagonist of Leddick's second novel (after My Worst Date) is Harry Potter, who danced in the corps de ballet for the Metropolitan Opera Company in the 1950s (as did Leddick himself). The story is related mainly in flashback by a present-day Potter?now a doctor, husband and father?who begins and ends the novel at the deathbed of an ex-lover from the Met. Leddick's well-turned phrases and apt apercus never answer the question that drives his novel: What could have turned the youthful Harry's passionate, exclusive, quite open early sexual interest in men into Dr. Potter's dutiful, heterosexual domesticity? By the end, we're told that the dissolution of one "all-consuming love" for fellow dancer Rex Ames robbed Harry of all his passion and much of his volition. Leddick gets across the trauma of their breakup, but too little of their love. Young Harry seems so lacking in self-awareness that his story conveys little more than his aesthetic and sexual appreciation for his lovers' bodies. This failure leaves the novel without a center, and the would-be tragedy on which it ends comes across flat and vaguely confusing.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The author of My Worst Date (1996) now tells the engaging story of Harry Potter, son of a woman rendered semi-senseless by Moira Shearer in The Red Shoes. In thrall to her passion, she dragged Harry into the world of ballet, in which a part of him remains forever after. Doing rounds in 1989, Harry, now Dr. Potter, happens on suicidal, AIDS-stricken Siegfried Ilquist, once, with his perfect nose and sculpted lips, the most handsome man in New York. Leddick then flashes back to the 1950s. Siegfried and Harry both danced with the Metropolitan Opera and formed a volatile triangle with Rex Ames, who later became Harry's lover. The three danced together in a Met production of Aida as members of "the sex squad" --male dancers sufficiently, uh, developed to wear the tiny Aida costumes to best advantage. Leddick uses an in-group of both (in)famous and imaginary characters to recall a memorable era in New York culture. The mixed cast will especially please opera queens of all persuasions. Whitney Scott

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (August 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312181744
• ISBN-13: 978-0312181741
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,876,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is a very disappointing "novel.", April 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Sex Squad (Hardcover)

After reading Leddick's "My Worst Date" I bought "The Sex Squad" as soon as it was on the stands. I wasted my money. "TSS" is either a quick follow-up to a well written first novel or an earlier attempt the publishers thought they could now sell. Either way, it is a great disappointment of a cobbled together story. Sympathetic characters are lacking and there are no clear motivations for their actions. I lost interest before I was a quarter through the book, but kept plugging along hoping the story (such as it was) would improve. This was a vain hope. Do yourself a favor and re-read "My Worst Date."

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not a great novel, but a fun read for opera/ballet fans, March 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Sex Squad: From Clicking to Climaxing -- the Complete Truth about Modern Marriage (Stonewall Inn Editions) (Paperback)

David Leddick's follow-up to "My Worst Date" represents a complete departure for him, a book that reads more like a series of non-fiction anecdotes than a conventional novel and mingles fictional characters with larger-than-life figures from the worlds of opera and ballet such as Maria Callas, Antony Tudor, Rudolf Bing, Zinka Milanov, et al. The results may well disappoint readers who are expecting "My Second-Worst Date," but this book will be absolute catnip for operaphiles and balletomanes. It's hard to know where the author drew some of his inspiration for the alleged dirt he dishes on these divas and divos, aside from a confidence that you can't libel the dead, but on its own terms I found this a very engaging visit to a closed world that Leddick captures in vivid prose.