The Turnout
'Impossible to put down, creepy and claustrophobic' (Stephen King) - the New York Times bestseller
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- 65,00 kr
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
If you like ballet and the movie Black Swan, I can guarantee you will love The Turnout.
«We have a different relationship to pain, their mother used to say.
It’s our friend, our lover.
When you wake up and the pain is gone, do you know what that means?
What, they’d ask every time.
You’re no longer a dancer.»
I really like Abbott's writing style; she writes in a way that indicates that something unpleasant and toxic is going to happen. A sore, flaming nerve murmurs in the plot from start to finish. At the same time she writes a bit melodically, sometimes the text is almost in rhyme. I like it. Abbott writes gloomy, toxicating, dark, and is good at creating ugly and beautiful characters you can't decide whether you are disgusted by or attracted to. The way Abbott weaves The Nutcracker into this psychological drama is very smart.
« … their bruises and blisters and blackened toenails hidden, their bodies so smooth and perfect and bare.»
The book is about the twin sisters Dara and Marie, who have been ballet dancers since they were born. Now they run their own studio and are ballet instructors together with Dara's husband, Charlie - who is now a pill-crunching ex-ballet dancer whose career was ruined by injuries and failed surgeruises. The three grew up together and are very close. Too close.
«Dara and Marie were the same, but different.
Dara was cool, but Marie was hot.
Dara was dark, but Marie was light.
Dara and Marie, the same but different.»
The plot takes place in the middle of the setup of The Nutcracker, the anxiety and stress is already over them like a dark, suffocating blanket. Then an accident happens, they have to renovate the studio at the same time as they work with preparations and training for the ballet. Intruders are in the building, Marie is obsessed with one of the men. Another accident happens, and then another. Someone are getting hurt. Someone would be dead. It's getting ugly.
The Turnout is a gritting, mysterious story about dysfunctional relationships, dark secrets, intruders' threatening atmospheres, sibling jealousy, murder, sexuality and lust, well woven into the world of ballet. It's about pain and bruises disguised with tutu's, velvet, silk and glue. Fake smiles, pink leotards and pointe shoes. I became so fascinated, and in fact addicted, by reading Abbott's story, I simply loved it.
«It was all about finding one's own way to fuse the foot to the shoe, the shoe to the foot, the body.
The shoe must become part of you, their mother always said. A new organ, snug and demanding and yours.»