| Title: |
Does Freddy Dance |
 |
| Author: |
Dick Scanlan |
| Published by: |
Alyson Publications, 1995 |
| ISBN: |
1-55583-287-3 [hardcover, 207 pages] |
Freddy's dance card is filled with partners
who twirl him around, step on his toes, and sometimes break his heart.
In "Family Album," a six-year-old Freddy unknowingly unearths
the source of his mother's hidden despair; twenty years later, she reaches
through her drunken haze to comfort her son against the fear of AIDS. In
"Cigarettes," Freddy does some dirty dancing, stealing cigarettes
for the bad boy next door in exchange for lessons on lust. "Tears
of Two" finds Freddy grown-up and his father grown old, revealing
a tender heart beneath his father's lawyerly shell. In "Red Light"
and "Life Line," Freddy takes his chances with dangerous women
in order to feel more like a man.
In the tradition of Susan Minot and David Feinberg, Does
Freddy Dance is an artful collection of stories that reads like a postmodern
novel, a realistic depiction of one man's life as a montage of interconnected,
if fragmented, moments. Each story stands on its own, but taken together
they resonate with the humor, the hopes, and the losses of gay life today.
