What You Become in Flight
A Memoir
-
- $12.99
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
"Poignant and exquisite"--The Los Angeles Review of Books
"An inspiring and powerful book"--Booklist
"A genuinely absorbing read"--Kirkus
"Revelatory, honest, and wondrous."--Chanel Miller, author of Know My Name
A lyrical and meditative memoir on the damage we inflict in the pursuit of perfection, the pain of losing our dreams, and the power of letting go of both.
With a promising career in classical ballet ahead of her, Ellen O'Connell Whittet was devastated when a misstep in rehearsal caused a career-ending injury. Ballet was the love of her life. She lived for her moments under the glare of the stage-lights--gliding through the air, pretending however fleetingly to effortlessly defy gravity.
Yet with a debilitating injury forcing her to reconsider her future, she also began to reconsider what she had taken for granted in her past. Beneath every perfect arabesque was a foot, disfigured by pointe shoes, stuffed--taped and bleeding--into a pink, silk slipper. Behind her ballerina's body was a young girl starving herself into a fragile collection of limbs. Within her love of ballet was a hatred of herself for struggling to achieve the perfection it demanded of her.
In this raw and redemptive debut memoir, Ellen O'Connell Whittet explores the silent suffering of the ballerina--and finds it emblematic of the violence that women quietly shoulder every day. For O'Connell Whittet, letting go of one meant confronting the other--only then was it possible to truly take flight.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this somber debut memoir, former ballet dancer Whittet reflects on her days as a young ballerina in California, the spinal injury that snuffed out her career prospects at 19, and her new life as a writer. Ballet had consumed Whittet from childhood: "As soon as I was walking I was dancing," she writes. The book's first half details her rigorous classical dance training; the pain she routinely battled from sprains and tears; the psychological toll of being in the spotlight (she contended with anorexia); and the trauma that came after her dance partner dropped her during a rehearsal, an accident that resulted in a fractured spine. The book's second half about the author trying to find a new calling after injury and rehab is less gripping. Whittet discusses going to graduate school for writing, seeing a therapist to help her get over a fear of snakes, and falling in love with her husband. Those looking for a memoir about ballet may feel short changed, as much of this book is not about dancing but rejecting the role of a "quiet, acquiescent ballerina" who claims a "new voice" as a writer. While Whittet's memoir doesn't fully satisfy, it certainly entices.
