Breaktime & Dance on My Grave

Breaktime & Dance on My Grave

Summary

In Breaktime, Ditto challenges Morgan to prove that literature is crap and triggers off a chain of events to alter his outlook of life forever. Ditto faces a series of charges from Morgan against literature: that all fiction is Done. Finished. Dead; a sham and a pretence. He undertakes faithfully to record a life in the week of Ditto - with all the chaos of reality thrown in - and his literary creation reveals more about himself than he originally bargained for.

In Dance on My Grave, life in his seaside town is uneventful for Hal Robinson, nothing unusual, exciting or odd ever happens to him - until now that is. Until the summer of his 16th birthday when he reaches a crossroads of choices in life. He foolishly takes a friend's boat for a day's sailing, gets into difficulty and is rescued by Barry Gorman. Their ensuing relationship results in a tumultous summer for Hal as he experiences the intense emotions of his first teenage love.

A major new movie - 'Summer of 85' - based on Dance on My Grave, by groundbreaking French director Francois Ozon, was released in October 2020 to much acclaim.

'Deftly captures the thrill of first love' - NME

'A sweet gay romance that gradually morphs into something more suspenseful and macabre' - Daily Telegraph

'A film that will take you back to your first summer love' - The Gay UK

Reviews

  • Clever and imaginative, wide and spacious
    Evening Standard

About the author

Aidan Chambers

Aidan Chambers was born in County Durham in 1934. After national service in the Royal Navy he became a teacher and then, for seven years, a monk. His young adult novels have been widely acclaimed, with POSTCARDS FROM NO-MAN'S LAND winning the prestigious Carnegie Medal and the US Michael L Printz Award. With his wife Nancy he ran Signal magazine and he has served as the president of the School Library Association. His devoted services to children's literature were recognised by his receipt of the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002.
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