They Don't Dance Much

James Ross

Published by Houghton Mifflin Co.

Rare First Edition. NEAR FINE Condition in VERY GOOD Dustjacket. No stains/rubbing. Not price-clipped. Former owner name on first page. The author's only book, an unjustly-obscure "country noir" novel acclaimed by the likes of Daniel Woodrell, George V. Higgins, Flannery O'Connor and Raymond Chandler. Very scarce in its original pictorial jacket by George Kelley, ominously showing the roadhouse/filling-station where the story takes place. From Steven Nester in The Rap Sheet: "Published in 1940, They Don t Dance Much has been chasing popular literary validation like a strumpet looking to be crowned Miss America. The novel gets respect from writers and aficionados, but it s the type of book that not too many readers come across without searching: usually by those who read backwards into a genre to see from whence it all came. In this case, begin with Daniel Woodrell and work your way back to the late William Gay, then to Cormac McCarthy and to James M. Cain, and you ll find it. The story holds up well. They Don t Dance Much is a fly-on-the-wall look at desperation and depravity, during a time when folks with low expectations made for the pot of gold, rainbow or not. it's as smoldering and lubricious as a writer could get in 1940.They Don t Dance Much was reissued in 1968 by the South Illinois University Press, with an afterward by George V. Higgins. In it he said, James Ross was a writer out of his season. . He advanced the craft of fiction as far as it could be advanced when he was writing, and nobody was paying attention. Very few, at least. Life s hard, life s very hard. It s harder without luck. But that of course, was what he was telling us. Although it s not read as much as it should be, They Don t Dance Much hasn t exactly been forgotten; it still seethes, it still smolders, it s dirty (Higgins said that what Ross put on the pages most writers, including his hard-boiled contemporaries, put between the chapters), and as a result of all that the book might have suffered. But here it is, risen again in 2013 edition--at a time when no one is very squeamish.". Seller Inventory # ABE-1723069347172

Bibliographic Details

Title: They Don't Dance Much
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co.
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Near Fine
Edition: 1st Edition