Alan Poul to direct feature film adaptation of "Dancer From The Dance"

This book was a bible to me.

It could be the greatest gay film ever made.

Wow. Andrew Holleran was one of my mentors during my MFA years. This is very, very exciting.

Can't hardly wait.

R2, what have you written?

Who will play Malone?

Who will play Sutherland?

Dansher from the Danshe!

Sutherland blowing Day-Traders in the tearoom at Grand Central Station, with the pockets of his trench coat stuffed full of trail mix is one of a hundred vivid scenes in that book.

So is Malone bathing the old grandmother-in law.

All the songs that are mentioned in Dancer From the Dance make THE Soundtrack of my coming out. Not one of those songs is known by any straight person (I'll Always Love My Momma!). It is the most perfect novel to read in autumn in the city.

What always set this book apart was that it was not written with a single care about what a straight person would think of it. It was only written for gay men. So much of what came after it was forced to deal with the horrific reality of AIDS. DFtD was a glimpse at a world few of us would live to tell about, but if you were there you are part of the most glorious moment in our history.

Having said all that, the cynic in me can only imagine how they will destroy it.

Poul also did "More Tales of The City", which I've always thought underrated due to preoccupation with the bad replacement casting for Mona and Mouse.

Let's hope he doesn't fuck this up. It is probably THE gay novel.

We'll be changing the 2 male leads to a straight man and woman. It's more universal and relatable that way.

Thanks, gays.

Exactly R8!

Let's reunite Jared Leto & Mathew McConahey for "gay" Oscar magic!

It could only work with unknowns...I would love to see it work, and shot in NYC.

Who should be cast for Malone and Sutherland? Cillian Murphy would be pretty enough, but I don't know if the age would be right.

it should use the park in the East Village and the West 20s for the Loft disco scenes - also some Fire Island scenes in the book as well

Malone is 26ish, isn't he?

How old is Sutherland?

I'm going to have to buy a new copy. I donated most of my gay books to an organization that sends books to prisoners. And guess what prisoners can't get enough of. Gay fiction. Who knew?

Tompkins Square Park is the park, right?

Jonathan Groff would be phenomenal in one of the lead roles!

"DFtD was a glimpse at a world few of us would live to tell about, but if you were there you are part of the most glorious moment in our history."

That has to be one of the saddest things I've read in a long time. I never ceased to be amazed at the number of gay men of my generation who think that the bacchanale of the 70's was the greatest part of our history. That's like heteros crowing that Plato's Retreat was the pinnacle of straight existence. After living through that and the 80's. I for one am glad we've managed to grow up a bit, even though people like R6 are stuck in perpetual sexual adolescence. R6, maybe you should re-read FA**OTS as an antidote.

God, you're a cunt, R15.

Bravo, R15.

Too happy to play Malone?

At least Roland Emmerich isn't involved.

A dancer dances!

R18 who he?

I thought it was Gabriel Clark at first, R21, but someone else said it's Cole Money, with whom I was not familiar. Anyway, I wouldn't want him to play Malone. Gabriel Clark, pornstar and escort, would work if he can act for real. But who knows?

Great book. Wonder how it will transfer to film, with only a nominal story line, and an omniscient narrator, with some pretty graphic sex descriptions.

Looking forward to what they come up with.

Emma Roberts as Malone! Lea Michele as Sutherland! Written, directed and produced by Ryan Murphy!

It would be a great indie film. For gay men.

Sutherland fingering his gas-blue beads while shreeking to the construction workers below her window to come up and "sucka my twat !"

Sutherland has all the best lines. A real "Auntie Mame" figure:

- Would you like a Valium? I happen to have four or five hundred of them in my pocket.

- I hope my guests don't disturb my collection of rare and antique Valiums.

- If we're going to talk serious, I think I'd better change clothes.

- You play the hand you're dealt. What I mean is, if Helen Keller can get through this life, so, my dear can we.

- Don't you just love these warm summer nights, with the possibility of so much dick?

Or Sutherland traipsing around Bonwits, farting noisily, until ejected by security, whereupon he immediately goes across the street and phones in a bomb scare...

(At least, I think it was Bonwit's. It might have been Lord & Taylor.)

Any news on this? The novel didn't have any graphic sex scenes from what I remember. The fire at the baths, the deaths of both the Queen and the Beautiful Young Man and all the references to people dying of cancer foreshadowed the coming of AIDS.

Sutherland: If it's a pill, take it.

Sutherland: My face seats five; my honeypot's alive.

Interview with Holleran. He says gays are in the 'white picket fence era.'

The article in R28 mentions a 2016 movie, but there is no info about it on IMDB. Not even a listing for preproduction.

[quote]Tompkins Square Park is the park, right?

Hmmmmm....I don't think it is. For some reason I think the park in the book is Stuyvesant Square, that park on East 15th-17th Streets between Second Ave and Rutherford Place. Am I right, DL smart folk?

Willthey do it as a period piece? It's impossible to think of it as being translatable to today.

It still blows my mind that Pat Loud was Holleran's literary agent.

It always makes me think of the old DL poster Cackle Cackle, who thought it was the greatest piece of gay literature and was completely baffled gay men of younger generations did not revere it or see in Malone the greatest gay hero ever.

A lot of DftD is based on fact. Had a good friend who said he knew the man on whom Malone was based. I knew a man who was the prototype for another character. And some of the events took place, like the Pink and Green Party on Fire Island.

So was the description of Stuyvesant Park, where I had the occasional, uninvolving conversation with the mustachioed man who was out with his Irish Setter, and who sets all hearts agog in DftD.

[quote] DFtD was a glimpse at a world few of us would live to tell about, but if you were there you are part of the most glorious moment in our history.

More proof the baby boomers have been the most narcissistic generation ever.

I'm reading the book right now and it seems to me that Malone is older than 26: he has been through college, then spent several years living a celibate life in Washington, D.C., before arriving in New York, so it would appear to me that most of the story takes place when Malone is in his early 30s, or 28/29 at the earliest. He's also described as distinctively blond, incredibly handsome, with haunted eyes. I'm struggling to think of an actor who fits that: Chris Hemsworth? Armie Hammer? Charlie Hunnam? Taylor Kitsch?

But there's been no more word about the potential movie, so who knows.

One of the lead roles will surely go to Meryl Streep.

[quote]He's also described as distinctively blond, incredibly handsome, with haunted eyes.

I wonder if dickmodel Joseph Sayers can act.

Chris Fawcett isn't blond, but I can see him as Malone. I'd like it if at least the two leads are played by gay actors.

This novel is unfilmable. That's why there's no progress in production.

Hmmmm.... I'm sorry to say I never heard of this book. None of the music, either. Perhaps it's because it came out when I was stationed in Germany. Anyway, I'm going to make sure I read it. Thanks, guys! Lots of good suggestions on DL these days.

I'm with some of the posters above: that was the most glorious time in our history. This generation will never begin to understand the secrecy of that era, the fact that you could still go to jail for homosexual sex acts, the searching to find out if there were other people like you out there, the sleaze-fest of the Mafia-run bars. And finally, FINALLY, feeling not odd, but special, because it was good to be gay and out when you had your brothers and sisters all around you. Hence the phrase, "An army of lovers cannot fail."

This IS the "white picket fence" era. It's boring and reductive as fuck. You kids have nothing to be proud of, believe me. My generation did all the work for you so you could lie back and receive all the benefits. For fuck's sake, show some respect.

R40, the moral of this novel is that this era was superficial and empty.

I love you, R40.

I just finished reading the novel, and while the prose was good, the writing style was so repetitive that I was bored by 3/4 of the way in. [In that way, it reminded me of Ann Rice's Beauty trilogy, which was so boring I never even made it through the first book.] Still, I'm glad I had the opportunity to read it. All of you who have criticized that era have to remember that the book was set in NYC, and certainly not every gay person went to live in NYC during that time period. Some of us stayed in Flyoverland, where, while many things were similar, life wasn't nearly as sordid.

[quote]This generation will never begin to understand the secrecy of that era, the fact that you could still go to jail for homosexual sex acts, the searching to find out if there were other people like you out there, the sleaze-fest of the Mafia-run bars. And finally, FINALLY, feeling not odd, but special, because it was good to be gay and out when you had your brothers and sisters all around you. Hence the phrase, "An army of lovers cannot fail."

To struggle and live through all that so gay men and lesbians could sign up for china patterns at Bloomies and disappear into the 'burbs just like all the hets.

Nothing wrong with china patterns.

MALONE LIVES!

But the movie doesn't.

[r26]: It was Gucci

[r27]: "My face seats five. My honeypot's on fire. Now repeat after me..."