They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (Serpent's Tail Classics)

"Sordid, pathetic, senselessly exciting. . . has the immediacy and the significance of a nerve-shattering explosion."—The New Republic

The depression of the 1930s led people to 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 filled with a competition and violence unknown to most ballrooms.

Horace McCoy was born near Nashville, Tennessee in 1897. His novels include I Should Have Stayed Home (1938), and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1948).

• Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression
• In a Lonely Place (New York Review Books)
• American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People
• A Rage in Harlem
• The Postman Always Rings Twice
• Strangers on a Train
• Farewell, My Lovely
• Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York
• Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992
• Nightmare Alley (New York Review Books Classics)