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. A lurid tale of dancing and desperation: Horace McCoy's classic American novel captures the dark side of the 1930s.

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, 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), and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1948). He died in 1955.