The Turnout
'Impossible to put down, creepy and claustrophobic' (Stephen King) - the New York Times bestseller
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4.3 • 7 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
'A twisting, turning story of revenge and redemption' STYLIST
It was the three of them. Always the three of them. Until it wasn't.
Dara and Marie were trained as ballet dancers by their glamorous mother, founder of the Durant School of Dance. After their parents died in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters took over running the school together with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student.
But when a suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of The Nutcracker - a season of competition, anxiety, and exhilaration - an interloper arrives and threatens their delicate balance.
The instant New York Times bestseller
'Impossible to put down, creepy and claustrophobic. It's WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE in ballet shoes' STEPHEN KING
'Compulsively readable' RUTH WARE
'A book you will not be able to forget' MARK BILLINGHAM
'My thriller of the year' JAKE KERRIDGE, DAILY TELEGRAPH, BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
'The feeling of menace grows stronger with every page' GUARDIAN
'Slow-burning and feverish, with all the intensity of a classic American film noir' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'Charged with foreboding, the novel throbs with gothic tension' IRISH TIMES
'Dark and juicy and tinged with horror' NEW YORK TIMES
'Dark and mesmerising' HARRIET TYCE
'This is Megan Abbott working at the absolute height of her talent' ATTICA LOCKE
'There's no one who captures the atmosphere of a tight-knit hothouse world, in all its feverish beauty and brutality, quite like Megan Abbott' TANA FRENCH
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sisters Dara and Marie Durant, the protagonists of this gut-punching noir from Thriller Award winner Abbott (Give Me Your Hand), have been running the Durant School of Dance since the accidental death of their parents. They're aided by Dara's husband, Charlie, who was the ballet school's prize student and who became a surrogate sibling after his mother moved to England. Marie's move out of the family home to live in the building housing the dance studio changes the dynamic among the three, which is upended even further after a fire damages the school. Derek, an overbearing contractor who assesses the scope of the necessary repairs, hard-sells the Durants on extensive renovations to be funded by the insurance settlement. Dara has cause to worry when Marie becomes attracted to Derek. A suspicious death follows. Abbott is pitch-perfect at making the sisters' complex dynamic and mix of emotions plausible and painful, while capturing the competitiveness and cruelty of children's ballet, where every young girl wishes to be the center of attention. This look at the darker side of the dance world demonstrates why Abbott has few peers at crafting moving stories of secrets and broken lives.
Customer Reviews
Tedious
Author
American. Award-winning and best-selling author of multiple psychological thrillers, screenwriter, and show runner of Dare Me, a TV series adapted from her novel of the same name. Two of her previous novels centred on pubertal and adolescent girls involved in endeavours hazardous to their physical and psychological well being: Dare Me (2012) about cheerleading; and You Will Know Me (2016) about gymnastics. She completes the trifecta, or possibly the triathlon, here with ballet.
In brief
Dara and Marie Durant are sisters in their thirties brought up in the image of their ballet dancer-turned-teacher mother. They and Dara’s husband Charlie, a former dancer of the same vintage now crippled by injury, run a dance academy in an unnamed American town originally started by their mother who died, along with their decidedly non-balletic Dad, in a car accident when the kids were in their late teens. The threesome have lived together since early teen years (creepy regardless of how they try to justify it to themselves) until recently when Marie set up camp upstairs in the studio. An accident (or is it) involving an old space heater sees the studio damaged, just as they are embarking on their busiest time of the year: having their young charges stage The Nutcracker. Enter a dodgy (in more ways than one) building contractor who disrupts the fragile dynamic. Family secrets are unearthed, and not just in their family. Stuff happens. Coppers and insurance investigators are suspicious. Backstory haunts. Another fire then resolution, of sorts. (Little Fires Everywhere vibe?)
Writing
Ms A specialises in moody, slow burn psychological thrillers with a dose of adolescent sexual exploration, generally not in a healthy way. Here, there is also an other worldly feel with echoes of grim (as distinct from Grimm’s, although those are pretty grim in the main) fairytale, to wit, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, on which the ballet is loosely based.
Bottom line
I liked You Will Know Me but found this annoyingly tedious. Female readers who were into ballet in a big way as kids might feel differently.