Astonish Me: A novel
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, April 2014:“Etonnez-moi (astonish me)!”--was the great ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev’s command to his collaborators and dancers, and it’s just what this insistent, subtle novel did to me. A confession:  I may have been the only reviewer who was not blown away by Maggie Shipstead's best-selling debut,Seating Arrangements. So this  sophisticated, intelligent novel  was an astonishing discovery.  On one level, it tells a straightforward story, of a young woman in the 1970s who fought her way into the professional ballet world, helped her Russian dancer/sort-of boyfriend defect, and then left the ballet, married a “civilian” and raised a son who turned out to be ballet-obsessed.  But it’s also an insistent and deft  look at passion and art, a book about growing up and facing your limits and getting on with life. That it’s set in the dance world--an irresistible venue even for those of us who performed neither toe nor tap--is just the bonus to a novel that already hit the jackpot.--Sara Nelson