Dance on my Grave - Aidan Chambers

A promise is a promise - no matter how hard it is to keep.

Summaries from Reviews:

'Hal Robinson of Southend, England, is intelligent, witty, self-deprecating, and somewhat innocent. During his sixteenth summer, friendship and then romance blossom between him and the self-confident Barry Gorman. When Barry dies in a motorcycle crash, Hal is driven to re-creating the events of the summer in a vivid colloquial account that conveys the emotional upheaval he is enduring after Barry's death. The account is preceded by news clippings and interspersed with reports made by the social worker assigned to investigate Hal's state of mind after his alleged desecration of his former lover's grave. […] The author is marvellously gifted at suggesting the ecstasy and insecurity that accompany new love - including its emotional and physical, social and spiritual aspects. A major strength of the book, the central conflict hinges not on the lovers being gay, but on their having two idiosyncratic and contradictory personalities.' The Horn Book

'"If I die first you dance on my grave,' Barry makes Hal promise. Barry's melodramatic request of his lover is fully in character with who Barry is, or who he believes he is: a fast living, fast loving, fast driving rake and seducer. Hal is the opposite: he thinks he has found in Barry his "boy with the magic beans," a bosom and eternal friend and lover. Witty and sophisticated […] Elegantly written and full of ideas.' School Library Journal

'Chambers transcends the genre and tells one of the best coming-of-age love stories it has been my privilege to read. To have male feelings so well depicted is a rare treat […] Everything in this book is superb.' Voice of Youth Advocates

First published by Bodley Head 1982

Defintions paperback (with Breaktime), January 2007,

ISBN 978-1-862-30288-4, £6.99