Astonish Me
A novel
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3.8 • 178 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of Great Circle comes "a novel you must read" (The Washington Post) about a mother who is trying to forget her past as a young ballerina in Paris who fell into a passionate romance with a Soviet dance superstar.
For years Joan has been trying to find peace and satisfaction in her role as wife and mother. Few in her drowsy California suburb know her thrilling history: as a young American ballerina in Paris, she had a doomed affair with Soviet dance superstar Arslan Rusakov.
After playing a leading role in his celebrated defection, Joan bowed out of the spotlight for good, heartbroken by Arslan and humbled by her own modest career. But when her son turns out to be a ballet prodigy, Joan is pulled back into a world she thought she'd left behind—a world of dangerous secrets, of Arslan, and of longing for what will always be just out of reach.
“The inner lives of [Shipstead’s] characters feel as real and immediate as the shifting settings they inhabit: still-gritty mid-1970s Manhattan, shabbily elegant Paris, the sunbaked suburban sprawl of Southern California.” —Entertainment Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shipstead's second novel (after Seating Arrangements), set mostly in California and New York in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, concerns Joan Joyce, a ballerina who abandons the dance world when she becomes pregnant. Early in her professional career, she had helped Arslan Rusakov, a famed Russian ballet dancer, defect to the West while his troupe was performing in Toronto, after which the two had an affair. But Joan marries Jacob, a childhood friend, and moves to suburban Southern California, abandoning her glamorous life of concerts and parties in New York City. Their son, Harry, reveals a gift for and a love of ballet, and his talent is such that eventually he comes in contact with Arslan. Their meeting leads to the creation of a ballet that will unite Arslan, Harry, and Harry's girlfriend, Chloe, who is also a dancer, but that threatens to leave Jacob estranged from his son. Shipstead's prose moves fluidly through settings as varied as a ballet rehearsal and a suburban backyard, and her characterizations are full. The story proceeds with a quiet insistence that is matched by the inevitability of its denouement.
Customer Reviews
Not For Me
I just couldn’t get into this book. The characters didn’t intrigue me, and the story dragged. I finally gave up about halfway through.