They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Horace McCoy

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Horace McCoy with an introduction by John Harvey Serpent’s Tail Classics

McCoy’s classic novel is a powerful story of ambition, desperation and determination in 1930s America

The Great Depression led people to take desperate measures to survive. The marathon dance craze, which flourished at that time, seemed a simple way for people to earn extra money, dancing the hours away for cash, for weeks at a time.

But the underside of that craze was a competition and violence unknown to most ballrooms. A lurid tale of dancing and desperation, Horace McCoy’s classic American novel captures the dark side of the 1930s.

‘An extraordinary achievement and every bit as shocking and moving today as it must have been for its original readers. The characters are both more, and less, than human, the writing is tersely perfect and the ending almost unbearably moving.’ Guardian

Major new stage adaptation by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel, opening at London’s The Bridge Theatre from October 2020 to January 2021

Horace McCoy was born near Nashville, Tennessee, in 1897. His varied career included reporting and sports editing, acting as a bodyguard to a politician, doubling for a wrestler and writing for films and magazines. A founder of the celebrated Dallas Little Theatre, his novels include I Should Have Stayed Home and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye. He died in 1955. Fiction £8.99 B-format paperback ISBN: 978 1 78816 590 7 128pp eISBN: 978 1 84765 310 9 September 2020 UK Com ex Can