Dancer
From the New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-winning, Booker Prize-longlisted author of Apeirogon and Let the Great World Spin
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
'Spins with virtuosic, charismatic brilliance around a core of wilful mystery' Guardian
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Russia in the 1940s. A small boy practises spinning on his mother's wooden floors, entranced by what he can make his body do. His momentum will propel him far from home; we watch him turn, through the lives of his teachers, his partners on and off stage, through the eyes of doormen and shoemakers, hustlers and nurses, through the rehearsal rooms of Moscow to Parisian opera houses to the streets of New York – ablaze as a comet, his light hot enough to catch and burn.
Masterfully blending fact and fiction to give an alternative biography of Rudolph Nureyev's life, Dancer is not only the story of one of the most important artists in history – but a biography of the twentieth century itself.
'McCann's agile, muscular prose creates its own energy and rhythm … He has taken one of the most charismatic characters of the twentieth century and created a bold contemporary novel' Daily Telegraph
'Remarkable … Does full justice to the tragic story of a dancer who was the glory of his generation' Sunday Times
'Here is an astonishing book. Colum McCann writes with a ferocious eloquence and a masterly sense of narrative' Spectator
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A chorus of voices breathe new life into the story of Rudolf Nureyev, one of ballet's greatest performers, in this vibrant, imaginative patchwork of a novel by Irish expatriate McCann (This Side of Brightness,etc.). As a seven-year-old peasant boy in 1944, Rudi dances for wounded soldiers in a hospital ward during World War II. By the mid-1950s he has outgrown life in the tiny Soviet town of Ufa, his unfailing determination to perform (against the stern wishes of his father) driving him into the wider world. It is his stubborn persistence more than his natural talent that distinguishes him, but his first teachers see great potential in him, and he is accepted into a ballet company in Leningrad. He defects to France and later moves on to Italy, where "the ovations become more exhausting than the dance" and he is sucked into the drug and disco culture of the late '70s, even after his partner Margot Fonteyn urges him to stay focused. A relationship with New York gay hustler Victor Pareci allows Rudi to indulge his wildest impulses, but his brashness and self-absorption are tempered when he journeys back to his homeland in 1987 in the touching conclusion. The sections narrated by different characters, some central and some marginal, create a kaleidoscopic effect. Faithfully capturing the pathos and grim poverty of the Soviet Union at mid-century, McCann also reveals a splashy tabloid affinity for the excesses and effects of fame and notoriety. Though the focus here is narrower than that of McCann's previous works, the novel is a lovely showcase for his fluid prose and storytelling skill.
