Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook209 pages3 hours
Why We Never Danced the Charleston
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Old stories never end; they just come down the generations to resolve themselves among the living. The scene is Charleston, South Carolina; the time, the 1920s, when old ladies dream of the past and a strange new dance, the Charleston, is seducing the youth of the city. Years later, whispers emerge of something baffling and tragic that happened back then. As an old man confronts those demanding the truth, we catch brilliant flashes of the confrontation between the dark, doomed Hirsch Hess, son of immigrants, and the fantastically ethereal Ned Grimke, a scion of the city. Told in intoxicatingly beautiful prose, this story of passion, beauty and the deadly effects of sexual repression takes us to a specific time and place, yet simultaneously blossoms as a universal tale of the human heart in conflict with its era. This cult classic, set in the most intriguing period of one of America s most beautiful cities, is now restored to print with an afterword by its author that traces the facts upon which it is based.
Unavailable
Author
Harlan Greene
Harlan Greene is the author of the novels Why We Never Danced the Charleston, What the Dead Remember, and The German Officer’s Boy
Read more from Harlan Greene
Why We Never Danced the Charleston Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Charleston's Historic Cemeteries Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Madame Margot: A Grotesque Legend of Old Charleston Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSouthern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Damned Don't Cry - They Just Disappear: The Life and Works of Harry Hervey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Why We Never Danced the Charleston
Related ebooks
Aladdin & Co: A Romance of Yankee Magic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurder at Wisteria Pines Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe story of my childhood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaster Humphrey’s Clock Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStone Cribs: A Smokey Dalton Novel: Smokey Dalton, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVintage: 13th Anniversary Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSh*t City Chronicles: Tales of Pain, Passion, and Civil Wrongs in America's Recent Past Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInside Out: A Memoir of Entering and Breaking Out of a Minneapolis Political Cult Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSparagmos: the Fall Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWho Was She? From "The Atlantic Monthly" for September, 1874 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHappy Yule to You Too Book Two of the Skalding Sagas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHawthorne and His Circle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Candle For Malka Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Sweet Black: An Unruly Hymn Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmpire Settings: A Novel of South Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Gentleman in Charleston and the Manner of His Death Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5No Evil is Wide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaster Humphrey's Clock Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStories by American Authors, Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWe Are Not This - Carolina Writers for Equality Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSilencing the Drums Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom Seven to Seventy: Memories of a Painter and a Yankee Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Passionate Engagement: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Meritocracy Quartet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Architect Who Couldn't Sing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPeacemakers vol. 4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrijhavn Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Pioneer Women Trilogy: The Coast of Bohemia, Dr. Breen's Practice & Annie Kilburn Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Master Humphery Clock Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurder at Rocky Point Park: Tragedy in Rhode Island's Summer Paradise Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Travel For You
Fodor's Best Road Trips in the USA: 50 Epic Trips Across All 50 States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Northeast Treasure Hunter's Gem & Mineral Guide (5th Edition): Where and How to Dig, Pan and Mine Your Own Gems and Minerals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPacific Coast Highway: Traveler's Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFodor's Bucket List USA: From the Epic to the Eccentric, 500+ Ultimate Experiences Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFodor's The Complete Guide to the National Parks of the West: with the Best Scenic Road Trips Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLonely Planet Maine & Acadia National Park Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cool Japan Guide: Fun in the Land of Manga, Lucky Cats and Ramen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spotting Danger Before It Spots You: Build Situational Awareness To Stay Safe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fodor’s Alaska Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An Atlas of Countries That Don't Exist: A Compendium of Fifty Unrecognized and Largely Unnoticed States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lonely Planet Mexico Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Fodor's New Orleans Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Spanish Verbs - Conjugations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLonely Planet The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Great American Places: Essential Historic Sites Across the U.S. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lost Towns of North Georgia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFodor's Bucket List Europe: From the Epic to the Eccentric, 500+ Ultimate Experiences Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLet's Build A Camper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South: Shackleton's Endurance Expedition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disney Declassified Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5RV Hacks: 400+ Ways to Make Life on the Road Easier, Safer, and More Fun! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Longest Way Home: One Man's Quest for the Courage to Settle Down Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales from the Haunted South: Dark Tourism and Memories of Slavery from the Civil War Era Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Notes from a Small Island Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Why We Never Danced the Charleston
Rating: 4.115384615384615 out of 5 stars
4/5
13 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In this novel, the unnamed narrator recounts the love triangle between himself and two other men in 1920's Charleston - a very repressive time when even a new dance was considered shocking enough to have people arrested. The young narrator meets Ned Grimke, a shy, club-footed boy, when just a child and begins an unusual friendship. As they grow older, the narrator begins to distance himself from him, not liking the unusual attraction that Ned has for him; he soon learns that he himself has such strange urgings. He begins to haunt the secret places where such men meet: a waterfront area known as The Battery and the Peacock Alley Bar. One night, the narrator meets the handsome Hirsch Hess, a brooding Jew who seem sbent on self-destruction over his homosexualtiy. They share a short-lived affair until Hirsch accidentally meets Ned. The two form a strange, very close bond that both the narrator and societal pressures attempt to break with disatrous results. "Why We Never Danced the Charleston" offers a unique glimpse at homosexuality in the South during the 1920's - a time when sexual expression was just beginning with new dances and other forms of culture. Greene depicts a very repressed society, in which everyone knows that the love between two men is wrong, where such men are taught to loathe themselves and others like them, and yet they survive, live and love despite what society says. His characters and their reaction to the time and societal norms with which they live come across very realistically. And, even though the ending is typically tragic for a gay novel, I still enjoyed reading it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beautifully written this story, set in Charleston, South Carolina around 1920s provides a vivid picture of life for young gay men of the time. The story principally centres around two young men, Hirsch Hess the handsome and desirable yet aloof son of Jewish immigrants, and Ned Grimke, slender, pale and somewhat effeminate. Hirsch is desired and briefly attained by our narrator, but soon lost to his old childhood and now rejected friend Ned. Looking back from his now old age our narrator describes the doomed love affair between Hirsch and Ned, cleverly skirting around the problems of what he could not observe first-hand, while convincingly recreating what it must have been like for a young man to recognise and then realise his sexual orientation at a time of prejudice and repression.While the characters and their way of life may not win our hearts, Harlan Greene's magical prose is more than enough hold us.