Lucy Ashe is the author of Clara & Olivia (shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger 2024), The Dance of the Dolls, and The Sleeping Beauties. She trained at the Royal Ballet School, before changing career plans and going to St. Hugh's College, Oxford University, to study English Literature. She is an English and Drama teacher and she reviews theatre for the website “Plays to See.”
At Electric Lit Ashe tagged "eight books that cut to the heart of what it means to learn to define oneself as a dancer." One title on the list:
They’re Going to Love You by Meg HowreyRead about the other entries on the list.
Set in both the present day and during the AIDS crisis, this is a psychologically powerful novel about longing for acceptance in a complicatedadult world. Carlisle Martin’s childhood holds secrets, some of which she will not admit even to herself. When, as an adult, she returns to New York City to visit her father, those memories cannot remain hidden any longer. She confronts her relationship with her ballerina mother and her father’s partner, James, learning what it is she needs to let go of in order to accept her past. The novel opens with a description of a ballet class, the fragile relationship between a teacher and student revealed: “He watches his words take shape in the boy’s body.” For this is the power of an adult mentor in the world of professional dance: every word can transform but also destroy.
They’re Going to Love You is among Tammy Greenwood's four books that juxtapose the beauty and ugliness of ballet and Lindsay Lynch's eight books that deliver behind-the-scenes drama.
--Marshal Zeringue
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