They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (Midnight Classics) [Paperback]

Horace McCoy (Author)

Book Description

Series: Midnight Classics | Publication Date: June 1, 1995

The depression of the 1930s led people to desperate measures to survive. The marathon dance craze, which flourished at that time, seemed a simple way for people to earn extra money - dancing the hours away for cash. But the underside of that craze was filled with a competition and violence unknown to most ballrooms. A lurid tale of dancing and desperation: Horace McCoy's classic American novel captures the dark side of the 1930s.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"'Sordid, pathetic, senselessly exciting...has the immediacy - and the significance - of a nerve-shattering explosion' New Republic 'Were it not in its physical details so carefully documented, it would be lurid beyond itself' The Nation 'Language is not minced in this short novel which presents life in its most brutal aspect' Saturday Review of Literature" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Horace McCoy was born near Nashville, Tennessee in 1897. During his lifetime he travelled all over the US as a salesman and taxi-driver, and his varied career included reporting and sports editing, acting as bodyguard to a politician, doubling for a wrestler, and writing for films and magazines. A founder of the celebrated Dallas Little Theatre, his novels include I Should Have Stayed Home (1938), Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1948), and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1935), which was made into a film. He died in 1955.

Product Details

• Paperback: 132 pages
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail (June 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 185242401X
• ISBN-13: 978-1852424015
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #477,058 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh, original, haunting, September 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (Midnight Classics) (Paperback)

Although this book was written in the 1930s, it speaks to today's ennui and loss of meaning. It is still fresh and will stand the test of time, much like Nathaniel West's work. The story describes two drifting people who meet on the streets of Hollywood and find themselves in a crazy dance marathon contest. They initially wanted to meet Hollywood producers and stars through the marathon, but then just go on and on, hour after hour, day after day, dancing in perpetual motion, not knowing why they continue. Perhaps it's for the $1000 prize money, or perhaps it's just because they're in a rut, trying to escape their desparate, empty lives. The contest is just a crass racket the promoters have dreamed up to pull in cash, and the contestants are almost like animals in a great big cage who can't escape, while the audience comes night after night to gawk and laugh at them. The basic cruelty of the contest is driven home in scenes depicting nightly "derby races," where the exhausted contestants must race around a track for 15 minutes, with the last place couple being eliminated. Bodies fall, tempers flare, and fists fly while the audience gasps and thrills to the show. In the end, we discover an enormous existential void in our two contestants, which leads to the only logical conclusion. This book is packed with sexual tension as well and should give today's slick writers pause. There's nothing new under the sun, kids. Previous generations weren't as stupid as you might think. In fact, this very fine work outstrips 99% of today's novels in its subtlety and originality.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Metaphor For The Failure of the American Dream, June 6, 2002

By 

Gary F. Taylor "GFT" (Biloxi, MS USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (Midnight Classics) (Paperback)

Considered experimental when first published in 1935, Hoarce McCoy's THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY is a series of extended flashbacks recalled by a prisoner as he stands before a judge pronouncing sentence upon him. But although the novel's structure drew considerable comment at the time, HORSES is best recalled for its vivid portrait of the depression-era fad for Marathon Dances and the gritty tone in which it sketches its desperate characters.

Written in the style of 1930s pulp fiction, the novel essentially presents both characters and Marathon Dance as a metaphor for a world in which those without money and social status struggle for survival with the only certainty in life being death itself--and whose struggle becomes a vicarious entertainment for the more secure. Although the novel is extremely short, it presents the reader with a powerful and very memorable series of images, most of which were well used by the famous 1960s Jane Fonda film version.

Powerful though it is, the novel does have some flaws, chief among them McCoy's failure to fully expand upon his metaphor of the Marathon Dance and his tendency to introduce additional ideas upon which he never really expands; the characters also read as rather flat. Even so, THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY's central concept and hard-edged prose is so impressive that the book possesses a compulsive readability; it is very much a book that you can't put down. Recommended.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Existential Masterpiece of the Depression, March 23, 2004

By 

James Bunnelle - See all my reviews
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This review is from: They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (Midnight Classics) (Paperback)

When all is said and done, it's McCoy's HORSES that, for me, so beautifully reflects the darkest side of the Depression days in the U.S., even more so than Steinbeck's wonderful GRAPES OF WRATH. McCoy gets to the very core of human desperation and misery, a cutthroat atmosphere where people will resort to ANYTHING just to survive. The dance marathon itself becomes an odd microcosm of society, totally self-contained, as if the world outside of its doors does not exist. I have not seen the film because I am afraid it will undermine the strong visions the book created in my mind, particularly the "derby" sections, where one person is playing the horse and the other the jockey, racing around the center ring in the dance floor. That is one of the most surreal visions any novel has ever planted in my brain and McCoy conveys the action and drama of these "races" so phenomenally well. In light of such strange imagery, to call this a "crime novel" is to rob it of its broader vision, its existential outlook on the modern social order and its warped priorities. More to the point, there's little to no crime here. Someone gets shot. That's the extent of it. There's no investigation, no suspense. So I suspect crime aficionados might be bored out of their skull with this one. I have the hardback first-edition, published by Simon & Schuster back when it was a fledgling company, and its too bad no one will give this its clothbound due and elevate it above the status of the "penny pocketbook". They did include it with Library of America's Crime Noir set but again, that forces it within a certain genre to which it does not belong. Although McCoy's success in the US was marginal at best, the French existentialists loved this novel and McCoy was hailed as a genius there and in other parts of Europe as well. At least he got some degree of recognition during his own lifetime.