- Home
- Books
- They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
- Harry Kline
Harry Kline
An older contestant whose death is absorbed into the show.
To keep moving despite physical danger.
The book

At a glance
- an aging marathon dancer
- An older contestant whose death is absorbed into the show.
- To keep moving despite physical danger.
- He dies during the marathon, which continues.
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeHarry Kline is an aging marathon dancer. An older contestant whose death is absorbed into the show.
The character wants to keep moving despite physical danger.. That desire is tested by a contest whose rules reward spectacle rather than care.
He dies during the marathon, which continues. The outcome clarifies what the marathon takes from people and what its organizers can turn into entertainment.
How the book draws them
- Rolean aging marathon dancer
- PressureAn older contestant whose death is absorbed into the show.
- GoalTo keep moving despite physical danger.
- Story turnHe dies during the marathon, which continues.
He dies during the marathon, which continues.
If you like They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
If you like Horace McCoy
Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.

Charles Bukowski
American poet and novelist of Los Angeles rooming houses, racetracks and the post office, who quit his job to write when a publisher offered him a hundred dollars a month. He came to Paris once, in September 1978, drank his way through a live television book programme and walked off the set — and French television has been replaying it ever since.
View author
Henry Miller
The Brooklyn dropout who arrived in Paris broke at thirty-eight and wrote the exuberant, banned books that ended American censorship.
View author
Sherwood Anderson
The Ohio ad man who walked out of his office, wrote Winesburg, Ohio, and sent the young Hemingway to Paris with letters of introduction.
View author



