We look forward to seeing you on your next visit to the library. Find a location near you.

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)

Book Cover
Average Rating
Author:
McCoy, Horace
Series:
Serpent's Tail Classics
Published:
Profile 2011
Status:
Checked Out
Description
During the Depression, Gloria and Robert enter a dance marathon in return for three square meals a day and a chance at winning the big-money prize. Under the intense scrutiny of the media, corporate sponsors and obsessive fans, the competing couples are put through a series of gruelling and humiliating feats of endurance, until they begin to fight among themselves and betray each other. As days and weeks go by, the tension reaches boiling point, and this pitch-black tale of desire and desperation heads towards a violent conclusion.
Also in This Series
Formats
Adobe EPUB eBook
Works on all eReaders (except Kindles), desktop computers and mobile devices with reading apps installed.
Sample 
Kindle Book
Works on Kindles and devices with a Kindle app installed.
Sample 
OverDrive Read
Sample 
Need Help?
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
More Like This
Other Editions and Formats
Choose a Format
Book
      Show Edition
On Shelf
Central
FICTION McCoy, H.
Sylvan Oaks
FICTION McCoy, H.
Place Hold
OverDrive eBook
      Show Edition
Checked Out
  Quick Copy View
Place Hold OverDrive
More Copies In LINK+
Loading LINK+ Copies...
Subjects
Subjects
Fiction
Literature
More Details
Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
05/26/2011
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781847653109
ASIN:
B00AFDU02A
Librarian Reviews
Published Reviews
Reviews from GoodReads
Loading GoodReads Reviews.
Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Horace McCoy. (2011). They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Profile.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Horace McCoy. 2011. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Profile.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Horace McCoy, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Profile, 2011.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Horace McCoy. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Profile, 2011.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
Copy Details
LibraryOwnedAvailable
Shared Digital Collection10
Staff View
Grouped Work ID:
28e123cc-aa59-c321-1e5b-60cd009d9c19
Go To Grouped Work
Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 16:09:57
Date Updated:
Jun 12, 2018 16:09:57
Last Metadata Check:
Apr 21, 2024 07:34:51
Last Metadata Change:
Jun 04, 2023 09:43:01
Last Availability Check:
Apr 21, 2024 07:34:54
Last Availability Change:
Apr 11, 2024 14:24:31
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Apr 23, 2024 02:10:41

OverDrive Product Record

images
    • cover:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/6852-1/{BA0F24B9-A559-49AC-85C6-6F8D2E2AC0BE}Img100.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • thumbnail:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/6852-1/{BA0F24B9-A559-49AC-85C6-6F8D2E2AC0BE}Img200.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover150Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/6852-1/BA0/F24/B9/{BA0F24B9-A559-49AC-85C6-6F8D2E2AC0BE}Img150.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover300Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/6852-1/BA0/F24/B9/{BA0F24B9-A559-49AC-85C6-6F8D2E2AC0BE}Img400.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
formats
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9781847653109
      • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
      • id: ebook-epub-adobe
      • identifiers:
            • type: ASIN
            • value: B00AFDU02A
      • name: Kindle Book
      • id: ebook-kindle
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9781847653109
      • name: OverDrive Read
      • id: ebook-overdrive
otherFormatIdentifiers
      • type: ISBN
      • value: 9781846687396
mediaType
eBook
primaryCreator
    • role: Author
    • name: Horace McCoy
title
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
dateAdded
2017-02-23T17:36:00-05:00
contentDetails
      • href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=1149435
      • type: text/html
      • account:
          • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
          • id: 1151
sortTitle
They Shoot Horses Dont They
crossRefId
1149435
series
Serpent's Tail Classics
id
ba0f24b9-a559-49ac-85c6-6f8d2e2ac0be
starRating
3.6

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain
False
formats
      • fileName: TheyShootHorsesDontT_9781847653109_1149435
      • partCount: 0
      • fileSize: 2330017
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9781847653109
      • rights:
            • type: Copying
            • value: 0
            • type: Printing
            • value: 0
            • type: Lending
            • value: 0
            • type: ReadAloud
            • value: 0
            • type: ExpirationRights
            • value: 0
      • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
      • isReadAlong: False
      • id: ebook-epub-adobe
      • onSaleDate: 5/26/2011
      • samples:
            • source: From the book
            • formatType: ebook-overdrive
            • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=BA0F24B9-A559-49AC-85C6-6F8D2E2AC0BE&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
      • fileName: TheyShootHorsesDontT_1149435
      • partCount: 0
      • fileSize: 0
      • identifiers:
            • type: ASIN
            • value: B00AFDU02A
      • name: Kindle Book
      • isReadAlong: False
      • id: ebook-kindle
      • onSaleDate: 5/26/2011
      • samples:
            • source: From the book
            • formatType: ebook-overdrive
            • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=BA0F24B9-A559-49AC-85C6-6F8D2E2AC0BE&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
      • fileName: TheyShootHorsesDontT_9781847653109_1149435
      • partCount: 0
      • fileSize: 0
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9781847653109
      • name: OverDrive Read
      • isReadAlong: False
      • id: ebook-overdrive
      • onSaleDate: 5/26/2011
      • samples:
            • source: From the book
            • formatType: ebook-overdrive
            • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=BA0F24B9-A559-49AC-85C6-6F8D2E2AC0BE&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
creators
      • role: Author
      • fileAs: McCoy, Horace
      • bioText: Horace McCoy was born near Nashville, Tennessee in 1897. During his lifetime he travelled all over the US as a salesman and taxi-driver, and his varied career included reporting and sports editing, acting as 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 (1938), Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1948), and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1935), which was made into a film. He died in 1955.
      • name: Horace McCoy
imprint
Serpent's Tail
publishDate
2011-05-26T00:00:00-04:00
isOwnedByCollections
True
title
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
fullDescription
During the Depression, Gloria and Robert enter a dance marathon in return for three square meals a day and a chance at winning the big-money prize. Under the intense scrutiny of the media, corporate sponsors and obsessive fans, the competing couples are put through a series of gruelling and humiliating feats of endurance, until they begin to fight among themselves and betray each other. As days and weeks go by, the tension reaches boiling point, and this pitch-black tale of desire and desperation heads towards a violent conclusion.
seriesId
1343828
reviews
      • premium: False
      • source: New Republic
      • content:

        Sordid, pathetic, senselessly exciting ... has the immediacy and the significance of a nerve-shattering explosion

      • premium: False
      • source: Saturday Review of Literature
      • content:

        Language is not minced in this short novel which presents life in its most brutal aspect

      • premium: False
      • source: Simone de Beauvoir
      • content:

        The first existentialist novel to have appeared in America

      • premium: False
      • source: New York Times
      • content:

        A spare, bleak parable about American life, which McCoy pictured as a Los Angeles dance marathon in the early thirties ... full of the kind of apocalyptic detail that both he and Nathanael West saw in life as lived on the Hollywood fringe

      • premium: False
      • source: Independent
      • content:

        Captures the survivalist barbarity in this bizarre convention, and becomes a metaphor for life itself: the last couple on their feet gets the prize

      • premium: False
      • source: Village Voice
      • content:

        I was moved, then shaken by the beauty and genius of Horace McCoy's metaphor

      • premium: False
      • source: booklit.com
      • content:

        It's the unanswerable nature of the whydunnit that ensures the book's durability

      • premium: False
      • source: readywhenyouarecb.com
      • content:

        Takes the reader into one of America's darkest corners ... The story has resonance for contemporary America and the current craze for reality television. How far are we from staging a dance marathon for television?

      • premium: False
      • source: Brothersjudd.com
      • content:

        This almost sadistically frank pulp fiction from 1935 will cure anyone of the delusion that earlier generations didn't know the score. With murder, incest, abortion, and the like generously added to a plot about people entertaining themselves by watching the misery of others, it's like one of these eliminationist "reality" television shows (Survivor, Big Brother, etc.) as conceived by the creative team of Thomas Hobbes and Charles Darwin. These lives are indeed nasty, brutish, and short. It doesn't make for a pretty story, but you have to admire the zeal and energy with which Horace McCoy drives his point home

      • premium: False
      • source: Val Hennessy
      • content:

        A sharply-honed novella... Brilliant

      • premium: False
      • source: Evening Standard
      • content:

        America's first existential novel

      • premium: False
      • source: Doug Johnstone
      • content:

        And finally, showing the modern writers how it's done... the 1930s existentialist noir classic... it's a breathtaking piece of storytelling that is still thrillingly relevant today.

      • premium: False
      • source: Laura Wilson
      • content:

        Forget Raymond Chandler and his overrated ilk - Horace McCoy's 1935 novel is the best example of American noir ever written... it is an extraordinary achievement and every bit as shocking and moving today as it must have been for its original readers. Gripping from the beginning - when we are given to understand that the narrator is being condemned to death for an unknown crime - it's the story of two losers stumbling endlessly round a grotty Hollywood ballroom in a grotesque and ultimately futile struggle for survival. The characters are both more, and less, than human, the writing is tersely perfect, and the ending almost unbearably moving.

      • premium: False
      • source: Anita Sethi
      • content:

        The brutality of the story is offset by the poetic beauty and precision of the narrative... In our world of fleeting reality TV stardom, this stark, urgent novel feels more timely than ever.

      • premium: False
      • source: Christopher Fowler
      • content:

        A typographically innovative drama... A heartbreaking existentialist fable about a gruelling marathon dance contest... the tale assumes the weight of Greek tragedy... a masterpiece.

popularity
91
links
    • self:
        • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/ba0f24b9-a559-49ac-85c6-6f8d2e2ac0be/metadata
        • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
id
ba0f24b9-a559-49ac-85c6-6f8d2e2ac0be
starRating
3.8
images
    • cover:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/6852-1/{BA0F24B9-A559-49AC-85C6-6F8D2E2AC0BE}Img100.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • thumbnail:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/6852-1/{BA0F24B9-A559-49AC-85C6-6F8D2E2AC0BE}Img200.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover150Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/6852-1/BA0/F24/B9/{BA0F24B9-A559-49AC-85C6-6F8D2E2AC0BE}Img150.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover300Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/6852-1/BA0/F24/B9/{BA0F24B9-A559-49AC-85C6-6F8D2E2AC0BE}Img400.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
isPublicPerformanceAllowed
False
languages
      • code: en
      • name: English
subjects
      • value: Fiction
      • value: Literature
publishDateText
05/26/2011
otherFormatIdentifiers
      • type: ISBN
      • value: 9781846687396
mediaType
eBook
shortDescription
During the Depression, Gloria and Robert enter a dance marathon in return for three square meals a day and a chance at winning the big-money prize. Under the intense scrutiny of the media, corporate sponsors and obsessive fans, the competing couples are put through a series of gruelling and humiliating feats of endurance, until they begin to fight among themselves and betray each other. As days and weeks go by, the tension reaches boiling point, and this pitch-black tale of desire and desperation heads towards a violent conclusion.
sortTitle
They Shoot Horses Dont They
crossRefId
1149435
series
Serpent's Tail Classics
publisher
Profile
bisacCodes
      • code: FIC000000
      • description: Fiction / General