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Dance, Recover, Repeat
From an edgy new voice comes a frenetic novel about boredom, porn, and pills. Brandishing a unique, comic worldview, Alasdair Duncan assembles a surprising, devastating narrative using dialogue, emails, Internet chats, fantasies, notebook entries, blips from video games, and more.
Calvin is sixteen and bored with suburban life. But in the city, things are altogether more exciting. It's there that Calvin meets Anthony -- and the two boys quickly become obsessed with each other. Then Calvin discovers pictures of Anthony on a pornographic website and is drawn into his new friend's seedy underworld. Just as he's discovering what's like when first love meets first sex, when friendship meets lust, and when love meets loss, his teen angst morphs into full-on self-destructivness...and puts him on the path to an absolutely shocking series of events.
With total command of the world he creates for his characters -- in which the computer is just another pill you can pop, another way to run and hide, like drinking or drugging or having sex -- Alsdair Duncan makes an auspicious debut.
Calvin is sixteen and bored with suburban life. But in the city, things are altogether more exciting. It's there that Calvin meets Anthony -- and the two boys quickly become obsessed with each other. Then Calvin discovers pictures of Anthony on a pornographic website and is drawn into his new friend's seedy underworld. Just as he's discovering what's like when first love meets first sex, when friendship meets lust, and when love meets loss, his teen angst morphs into full-on self-destructivness...and puts him on the path to an absolutely shocking series of events.
With total command of the world he creates for his characters -- in which the computer is just another pill you can pop, another way to run and hide, like drinking or drugging or having sex -- Alsdair Duncan makes an auspicious debut.
- GenresGayFictionYoung Adult
384 pages, Paperback
First published April 19, 2005
2 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Alasdair Duncan
24 books5 followersAlasdair Duncan (born 22 November 1982) is an author and journalist, based in Brisbane on the east coast of Australia. He is a section editor at weekly music magazine Rave, where he has published interviews with Cut Copy, LCD Soundsystem, M.I.A. and Soulwax, and is a frequent contributor to The ABC's Unleashed blog.
Duncan is perhaps most notable as the author of the novel "Sushi Central", which was published under the title "Dance, Recover, Repeat" in the United States by MTV Books. His second novel, Metro, was published in Australia in August 2006, and was released in the UK by Burning House Books in February 2008.
At age 16, Duncan's first short novel, "Rose and Charcoal," was shortlisted for the Penguin/Qantas/Somerset Award for School-Age Writers. He later won the State Library of Queensland's Young Writers Award with an entry called "Love".
In 2008 he was a judge for the State Library of Queensland's Young Writers Award.
Duncan is perhaps most notable as the author of the novel "Sushi Central", which was published under the title "Dance, Recover, Repeat" in the United States by MTV Books. His second novel, Metro, was published in Australia in August 2006, and was released in the UK by Burning House Books in February 2008.
At age 16, Duncan's first short novel, "Rose and Charcoal," was shortlisted for the Penguin/Qantas/Somerset Award for School-Age Writers. He later won the State Library of Queensland's Young Writers Award with an entry called "Love".
In 2008 he was a judge for the State Library of Queensland's Young Writers Award.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 4, 2023
One of the most haunting and engaging stories I've read that I return to again and again. Though on the surface it appears to be about your typical gay male teenager and his adventures in drugs and various sexcapades - the story goes far deeper than that. Should you begin digging deeper into the words on the page and yourself; you'll find yourself reflecting as much as our young narrator, Calvin. Filled with themes of grief, dissociation, consent, mental health, and a healthy dash of humor - this novel is a good companion for anyone who loves lgbtq+ stories, psychology, and the darker side of life.
December 15, 2009
Calvin is your typical disaffected suburban teen, passing the time doing as many drugs and getting as much sex as he can. After an internet friend sends Calvin pornographic photos of himself, Calvin becomes obsessed with the other, unknown boy in the photographs. Then at a party, he meets the boy from the photographs, who's name is Anthony...
I'm not sure what I think of this book except to say that I wish the main character Calvin would get some therapy. I worry about him. That said, I thought he was quite realistic, a teenage boy with no real problems other than the fact that he analyzes and overthinking everything as he searching for meaning and feeling in a life that seems meaning life, where he can't feel anything.
He desperately wants to feel something to connect to people, but all his relationships are superficial and numb, especially with all the many boys he hooks up with.
Anthony tells him the key to getting through life is being able to 'take yourself of the equation' i.e retreat so deep into yourself that you're not connected to what's happening to you. Calvin is both drawn to and terrified by the idea of being able to do that.
I'm not really sure what the moral of the story is here, or whether Calvin learns or changes in anyway. All I know is that apparently you need to have as much sex with as many people as you can while you're still young and hot and people want you, because after that life is meaningless.
It's a theme reiterated by almost every single character, but I can't tell if the author approves of the idea or not. I actually don't know what the author was trying to do with this story, a although he was 22 when he wrote it, which may explain things.
The style was interesting: it included e-mails, IM conversations, dialogue format, paragraph's from the main character's note book, etc. Sometimes it worked for me, sometimes it didn't. Often a conversation is interspersed with paragraphs of observation of what's going on (for example, what Pack-man is doing on the video game screen). I got the feeling that these paragraphs were supposed to be symbolic in some way, but I mostly ended up skimming them to get back to the conversation going on.
I'm not sure what I think of this book except to say that I wish the main character Calvin would get some therapy. I worry about him. That said, I thought he was quite realistic, a teenage boy with no real problems other than the fact that he analyzes and overthinking everything as he searching for meaning and feeling in a life that seems meaning life, where he can't feel anything.
He desperately wants to feel something to connect to people, but all his relationships are superficial and numb, especially with all the many boys he hooks up with.
Anthony tells him the key to getting through life is being able to 'take yourself of the equation' i.e retreat so deep into yourself that you're not connected to what's happening to you. Calvin is both drawn to and terrified by the idea of being able to do that.
I'm not really sure what the moral of the story is here, or whether Calvin learns or changes in anyway. All I know is that apparently you need to have as much sex with as many people as you can while you're still young and hot and people want you, because after that life is meaningless.
It's a theme reiterated by almost every single character, but I can't tell if the author approves of the idea or not. I actually don't know what the author was trying to do with this story, a although he was 22 when he wrote it, which may explain things.
The style was interesting: it included e-mails, IM conversations, dialogue format, paragraph's from the main character's note book, etc. Sometimes it worked for me, sometimes it didn't. Often a conversation is interspersed with paragraphs of observation of what's going on (for example, what Pack-man is doing on the video game screen). I got the feeling that these paragraphs were supposed to be symbolic in some way, but I mostly ended up skimming them to get back to the conversation going on.
July 5, 2013
this book follows the mind of some yuppie teenage kid and his sexcapades/drug use/follies.
what's the point?
duncan admits a couple hundred pages in that his protagonist is boring and over analyzes everything (though his analysis is always shallow and draws absolutely no conclusions about anything at all. what i want to know is: was it worth writing a story about someone as vapid and unaware as calvin?
i loved reading the same sentences over and over on several different pages. hey, nice touch there, alasdair. what's with me reading such bad books lately? :(
the book kept my interest at several key points. and the font was large so it felt like i was reading a lot when i wasn't at all. so 1 star instead of ½ a star. :D
what's the point?
duncan admits a couple hundred pages in that his protagonist is boring and over analyzes everything (though his analysis is always shallow and draws absolutely no conclusions about anything at all. what i want to know is: was it worth writing a story about someone as vapid and unaware as calvin?
i loved reading the same sentences over and over on several different pages. hey, nice touch there, alasdair. what's with me reading such bad books lately? :(
the book kept my interest at several key points. and the font was large so it felt like i was reading a lot when i wasn't at all. so 1 star instead of ½ a star. :D
May 16, 2007
This is one the darkest and most curving stories I have ever read. It's about teens and being disengaged and pornography and drugs and boundries and childhood and the darkest places a heart can roam.
The last chapter to this day still blows my mind with its harrowing moral
The last chapter to this day still blows my mind with its harrowing moral
July 28, 2017
Primo romanzo del giovanissimo autore di Metro.
Anche qui come in Metro il protagonista è un personaggio che spesso non attira la simpatia del lettore, ma riesce a comunicare un disagio e uno spleen ben più maturi dei suoi 16 anni.
Anche qui come in Metro il protagonista è un personaggio che spesso non attira la simpatia del lettore, ma riesce a comunicare un disagio e uno spleen ben più maturi dei suoi 16 anni.
August 11, 2010
I really enjoyed this book, although I could not relate to the drug use. I want more. . .
January 1, 2008
Well, once again, I would give this a zero if i could. It just didn't hold my interrest.
February 24, 2013
Hauntingly beautiful.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews