Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead (2014)

I think the Russian defector angle caused me to pick up this audio book. I don't really get ballet - the amount of training and constant practice seems insane to me, and this book did not change my mind on that, but did give me an even closer look into the development of top ballet dancers and their world. I remember my mother being thrilled by Rudolf Nureyev and later Baryshnikov. When I look at the Wikipedia bio of Baryshnikov, it seems like the male Russian ballet dancer in Astonish Me is based on him to some extent - defecting in Canada in the early 1970's with the help of an American dancer. And the ballet company's director Mr. K. might be partially based on George Balanchine - also of a Russian background.

In Astonish Me, Joan is a ballet dancer - good enough to dance in the corps of a major New York City ballet, but not good enough to ever become a lead dancer. She spends a season in Paris, where she briefly meets the famous Russian dancere Arsalan Ruskov and leaves him her address. He writes her and when the opportunity arises to defect in Canada, he asks that she be the one to drive the getaway car. They are together for a while, but he is already famous and his attention is pulled away from her, if it ever was with her. She marries a guy that she has known since they were children, they have a son Harry, move out to California, and she eventually starts a dance studio, where her prize students end up being her son and neighbor Chloe.

I guess it is the way of modern novels that they keep bouncing back and forth in time, luckily providing date and place each time, so the story gets moved along at different levels and slowly scatters the clues to the complex set of relationships we find at the end. All in all, well told, drew me in, astonished me at times, reminded me of times Mom took me to the Nutcracker at Rockefeller Center, to Swan Lake most likely at Lincoln Center, I think we actually did see Nureyev live when I was a kid. It is a highly precise skill, and I guess if football players can keep getting injured for our entertainment, why not ballet dancers. I like dance, like watching dance, but prefer more free form, styles that are not as rigid as ballet, but maybe if I understood it more, I would appreciate it more. I know this is supposed to be about the book, but as with many of my comments on books, I go where the book takes me, often reflecting on my own life.