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Still Dancing
In Still Dancing author Jameson Currier brings together twenty short stories spanning three decades of the impact of the AIDS epidemic on the gay community. Along with stories from Currier's debut collection, Dancing on the Moon, praised by The Village Voice as "defiant and elegiac," are ten newly selected stories written by one of our preeminent masters of the short narrative form.
332 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2008
13 people want to read
About the author
Jameson Currier
55 books30 followersJameson Currier is the author of five novels, Where the Rainbow Ends, nominated for a Lambda Literary award, The Wolf at the Door, The Third Buddha, What Comes Around, and The Forever Marathon, and four collections of short fiction: Dancing on the Moon; Desire, Lust, Passion, Sex; Still Dancing: New and Selected Stories; and The Haunted Heart and Other Tales, which was awarded a Black Quill Award for Best Dark Genre Fiction Collection. His short fiction has appeared in many literary magazines and Web sites, including Velvet Mafia, Blithe House Quarterly, Confrontation, Christopher Street, and the anthologies Men on Men 5, Best American Gay Fiction 3, Boyfriends from Hell, Mammoth Book of New Gay Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best American Erotica, Best Gay Romance, Best Gay Stories, Circa 2000, Rebel Yell, I Do/I Don't, Where the Boys Are, Nine Hundred & Sixty-Nine, Wilde Stories, Unspeakable Horror, and Making Literature Matter. His AIDS-themed short stories have also been translated into French by Anne-Laure Hubert and published as Les Fantômes. His reviews, essays, interviews, and articles on AIDS and gay culture have been published in many national and local publications, including The Washington Post, Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, Lambda Book Report, The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, The Washington Blade, Southern Voice, Metrosource, Bay Area Reporter, Frontiers, The New York Blade, and Body Positive. In 2010, he began Chelsea Station Editions, an independent press for gay books, and the following year launched Chelsea Station, a literary magazine devoted to gay-themed writing. In 2013 he edited two original anthologies for the press: Between: New Gay Poetry and With: New Gay Fiction. He currently resides in Manhattan.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 29, 2011
Full disclosure: I not only know Jameson Currier, I count him among my closest friends, which makes reviewing his work that much more challenging; writers do not read their friend’s work, it is safer that way. However, I have been a fan of Currier’s since reading Where the Rainbow Ends and met him through the novel. Besides, it is too intriguing to search the faces of his characters for my likeness, or someone we know, and though I have yet to find evidence of a single similarity I do find the author’s biological details surface here and there in the men who populate his fictionalized version of New York. For those who do not have the pleasure of knowing him, Currier is a southern gentleman in the classic sense of the term, and I have no problem summoning his gentle cadence with the soft-touch of a Georgia accent he has not completely lost in all his years in the north.
This collection is a follow up to his first collection, Dancing on the Moon, and is a postcard from the decades of the 70s through early 90s when the gay community lived through its own holocaust. These stories do not contain the melodrama common in disease-of-the-week movies, nor the sustained outrage of Larry Kramer, but are instead told in an objective journalistic style. Currier is able to capture the essence of gay relationships forged in the 70s during the sexual revolution, and the 80s when AIDS forced us to rely on those network of friends and lovers for moral and mental support. His world is populated by actors, lawyers, dancers, writers, doctors; characters who are clearly drawn and similar to men you know. He has the ability to capture our relationships in all their confusing and sexually intertwined complexity. These stories are not just about survival of those who were left behind to pick up the pieces and forge on, but about living in the city, living as gay men, and dancing, loving, and enjoying our freedom in the folds of a society we have created on our own.
This collection is a follow up to his first collection, Dancing on the Moon, and is a postcard from the decades of the 70s through early 90s when the gay community lived through its own holocaust. These stories do not contain the melodrama common in disease-of-the-week movies, nor the sustained outrage of Larry Kramer, but are instead told in an objective journalistic style. Currier is able to capture the essence of gay relationships forged in the 70s during the sexual revolution, and the 80s when AIDS forced us to rely on those network of friends and lovers for moral and mental support. His world is populated by actors, lawyers, dancers, writers, doctors; characters who are clearly drawn and similar to men you know. He has the ability to capture our relationships in all their confusing and sexually intertwined complexity. These stories are not just about survival of those who were left behind to pick up the pieces and forge on, but about living in the city, living as gay men, and dancing, loving, and enjoying our freedom in the folds of a society we have created on our own.
January 7, 2009
Author Jameson Currier has chronicled the AIDS crisis before in the novel Where the Rainbow Ends and the anthology Dancing on the Moon. His latest short story collection, Still Dancing, continues to poignantly and effectively convey the impact of AIDS on the gay male community. Each entry has its own unique identity and whether the characters therein are either enlightening or heartbreaking, their stories are always engrossing and unforgettable.
The entire story collection is noteworthy, and a select few entries deserve special mention. “The Chelsea Rose” is the profound story of budding writers Paul and Keith and leather daddy, Frank, who all live in the same building and end up sharing more than just a mailing address; “Dancing on the Moon” is sullenly narrated by Eddie, who witnesses the demise of his friends Bill, Mike, Tom and Allan; “What You Talk About” is the striking conversation exchange of two men on a blind date whose former lovers have died from AIDS; “Someone Like You” is an inviting tale told by Tom, who juggles two polar opposite men, Peter and Dylan, only to find his true soul mate in his best friend, Suzanne; and “Jade” is the compelling story of a grandmother's brief encounter with the daughter of her deceased grandson's lover.
Currier has a remarkable knack for dialogue that is accessible, as well as relatable, which makes his characters seems all the more human. Readers will likely find that several of these individuals (and their situations) remind them of someone they know in real life. Those seeking a 'feel good' story collection will be surprised but not disappointed with the author's efforts, because the result is as impressive as it is impressionable.
The entire story collection is noteworthy, and a select few entries deserve special mention. “The Chelsea Rose” is the profound story of budding writers Paul and Keith and leather daddy, Frank, who all live in the same building and end up sharing more than just a mailing address; “Dancing on the Moon” is sullenly narrated by Eddie, who witnesses the demise of his friends Bill, Mike, Tom and Allan; “What You Talk About” is the striking conversation exchange of two men on a blind date whose former lovers have died from AIDS; “Someone Like You” is an inviting tale told by Tom, who juggles two polar opposite men, Peter and Dylan, only to find his true soul mate in his best friend, Suzanne; and “Jade” is the compelling story of a grandmother's brief encounter with the daughter of her deceased grandson's lover.
Currier has a remarkable knack for dialogue that is accessible, as well as relatable, which makes his characters seems all the more human. Readers will likely find that several of these individuals (and their situations) remind them of someone they know in real life. Those seeking a 'feel good' story collection will be surprised but not disappointed with the author's efforts, because the result is as impressive as it is impressionable.
May 6, 2017
now this is a book meant to be read at one's leisure, to be read one is when at a place where one feels mighty cosy for there are all shades of a lifetime drawn within this gem of a collection... a must read...
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews