Cover of White Swan, Black Swan

White Swan, Black Swan

"Adrienne Sharp writes with breathtaking perception about the needs and desires of the body, its resilience and its vulnerabilities. Art, passion, history intersect with burning immediacy in this beautifully crafted book."

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-CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI

Author of The Mistress of Spices

The world's most famous choreographer becomes infatuated with a talented young dancer who proves both siren and muse . . . A rising star plunges into an affair with a principal but finds that the ecstasy on the stage cannot be matched in the bedroom . . . A dying legend reflects on the fading beauty of a life in motion, lost to everything but memory. In this beguiling collection, Adrienne Sharp captures the essence and passion of ballet and its fleeting world and translates them into unforgettable stories. White Swan, Black Swanheralds the arrival of a unerringly graceful new voice in American fiction.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 256 pages

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Liked White Swan, Black Swan? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked White Swan, Black Swan. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. The Pointe Book: Shoes, Training & Technique Shares ballet, dance
  2. Winter Season: A Dancer's Journal Shares ballet, dance
  3. Basic Principles of Classical Ballet Shares ballet, dance
  4. Girl in Motion Shares ballet, dance, fiction

“People who read White Swan, Black Swan tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Once a Dancer: An Autobiography
  2. The Sugarless Plum
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  4. I, Maya Plisetskaya

“If you want more of the same (literary fiction), start with these.”

  1. McSweeney's #25
  2. The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust
  3. The Better of McSweeney's, Vol. 1
  4. Big Lonesome

“If it was the ballet that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Tutu Much
  2. Breaking Pointe: A Ballet Novel
  3. Classical Ballet Technique
  4. Ballerina

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. The Muse: A Pride and Prejudice Variation
  2. Balanchine & the Lost Muse: Revolution & the Making of a Choreographer
  3. Who Was Maria Tallchief?
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