In these immaculately crafted stories inspired by the 1980s, Philip Dean Walker spotlights a cast of celebrities and historical figures in situations unsettling as Day-Glo and poignant as roses while the specter of AIDS looms. "This highly original meditation on the '80s is like nothing else you've read. Dead celebrities are brought back to life in the oddest places: Jackie O in a New York sex club, Princess Di in a London drag bar, Rock Hudson at the White House. Plus Sylvester, Halston and Liza, Keith Haring, Madonna, and, best of all, an anonymous narrator who notices that only good-looking guys in New York are getting the new gay cancer. Odd conjunctions, great wit, and the shadow of AIDS make these stories deceptively light and strangely disturbing." --Andrew Holleran, author of Dancer from the Dance "In his debut collection At Danceteria and Other Stories, Philip Dean Walker writes with a kind of savage nostalgia, one that knows the past was not prettier or glitzier or more fabulous--only more terrifying. Set in the early 1980s, when the word 'queer' was still an insult and when doctors and nurses invented their own names for the mysterious disease killing beautiful young men, At Danceteria and Other Stories brutally exposes how what we don't know about ourselves can kill us. Walker's writing is vivid, electric and devastating." --Stephanie Grant, author of The Passion of Alice "These stories--so funny and inventive, so merciless, smart, and affecting--are like no others I know, populated with American celebutantes, like Liza Minnelli, Jackie Kennedy, and Little Edie Beale, and punctuated by an abiding American loneliness that has the power to break one's heart. Walker's stories are fully, fully alive." --Richard McCann, author of Mother of Sorrows "At a time when many young gay writers are forgetting their queer lineage, Philip Dean Walker comes along and schools us with his debut short story collection. Here is Halston, Liza, and Warhol at Studio 54; here is a drag queen who rivals Josephine Baker's star appeal; and here is, in Walker's words, the boy who lived next to the boys next door, dead during the early plague years, but resurrected through Walker's alluring prose, prose that renders the past our present. These stories are clever and do not apologize for their cleverness, like Rock Hudson, who explains here, 'Handsome men know they're handsome. There was no reason to be coy or overly modest about it--that kind of thing just reeked of phoniness to him.' Phony, these stories are not. From the Castro to Grey Gardens, I travelled gleefully alongside Walker in At Danceteria and Other Stories, and am only disappointed the journey had to end." --D. Gilson, author of I Will Say This Exactly One Time: Essays "Reading Philip Dean Walker is like being swept into the defiantly glittering rooms of tragedy-darkened souls. Walker's At Danceteria and Other Stories testifies to the tart-tongued power of language to resurrect and witness, in tales that are screamingly funny and hauntingly sad. His men and women radiate an alluring self-awareness and fallibility that touches our deepest places." --Elise Levine, author of Driving Men Mad

At Danceteria and Other Stories

Walker, Philip Dean

Literature & Fiction

Squares & Rebels

"Scathingly funny, downright nasty, unnervingly haunting, and ultimately heartbreaking, the stories in Better Davis and Other Stories take a very specific moment in American culture-the late seventies and early-mid eighties-and imagine the inner worlds of true-life celebrities, artists, gay playboys, and their good-time gal pals as AIDS shadowed and then decimated a vibrant and decadent generation. Keenly aware of his characters' failings and frailties as well as their vulnerability and humanity, Philip Dean Walker writes as if Andrew Holleran had ever turned his shrewd lens on the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and Paul Lynde, revealing the messy and tender hearts of large and small American icons who are already half-forgotten." -Tim Murphy, author of Christodora and Correspondents "Philip Dean Walker's Better Davis and Other Stories brings life to extraordinary celebrity corners of the early years of the AIDS crisis-imagining actor Jim J. Bullock getting a test in 1985, or Natalie Wood and her friend Mart Crowley discussing 'that new gay disease.' In Walker's deft and evocative prose, these stars are returned to human scale as they grapple with something neither money nor fame could free them from. At once tender, sad, sensual, and gossipy, Better Davis is the literary equivalent of an incredible drag act, delivering the essence of each star in captivating short bursts." -Hugh Ryan, author of When Brooklyn Was Queer "Philip Dean Walker's glowing third collection displays his usual humor, rapid pace, and inventiveness. What might seem on the surface to feel like gossip is suddenly dignified by astute psychology and empathy. He never stoops to incendiary sensationalism. He understands the era in all its messy, problematic, intentional rebellion and sensuality. Better Davis and Other Stories is a subtle provocation and an endorsement of the self saying 'Yes' to love and friendship and ultimately a solitary wisdom about loss. It's also a daring reimagining of an entire era we'd likely rather forget." -Michael Carroll, author of Stella Maris: And Other Key West Stories "This book is a treasure-wise, irreverent, capable of both celebration and mourning. Walker is a singular talent, able to make both humor and tragedy come to life on the page, and to illuminate the many ways that by choice or necessity, a life can become a performance. Together, the characters in Better Davis and Other Stories create a vibrant portrait of a community at the precipice of the AIDS crisis. In preserving so much of the joy and human connection of this era, Walker underscores and grieves the enormous loss." -Danielle Evans, author of The Office of Historical Corrections "Better Davis and Other Stories made me feel like I was curled up around the gayest of camp fires, being regaled with tales of grand icons in their most vulnerable moments, stories of sexual freedom, and the shackles of AIDS, with moments of wild humor and startling honesty. If you've ever wondered what Liz Taylor and Maureen Stapleton talked about when they got drunk at a drag show, this is the book for you. It's both a thrill-ride and necessary reading." -Drew Droege, Actor/Writer

Better Davis and Other Stories

Genre Fiction

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Walker, Philip Dean. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Walker, Philip Dean

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Walker, Philip Dean. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

At Danceteria and Other Stories

Better Davis and Other Stories