Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead

Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead
Published by Knopf, ISBN 978-0307962904
Hardcover, $25.95, 272 pages

Genre: Literary Fiction
Plot: Joan is a young professional ballerina who meets Aslan, a famous Russian ballet legend and helps him to escape to the United States. After their torrid affair ends, she goes back home, marries her high school boyfriend and they have a son together. Years later, the boy becomes a dancer himself and wishes to meet the famous dancer his mother once knew.

My Review: In Maggie Shipstead's first novel, Seating Arrangements, she managed to brilliantly capture the voice of a middle-aged man contemplating an affair during the weekend of his daughter's wedding. I was so impressed with Shipstead's beautifully crafted sentences, it was like she spent hours making each one perfect.

In Astonish Me, Shipstead once again drops us into a world we don't know. We feel what it's like to be a part of a ballet company, the competition, the discipline and way one must give oneself completely over to become a dancer worthy of being part of a ballet company. Like athletes, at some point everyone must come to the realization that they are no longer good enough to go to the next level.

The novel moves back and forth in time, and we see Joan as a young dancer and then as a wife, mother and teacher. Joan's husband has loved her forever, but sometimes he feels she doesn't love him or their life as much. He says to Joan:

"Most of the time now you're here with me- really here, invested; it's not like it was at first- and I think, she's letting me know her, really know her the way people do when they're married. And at other times you're so distant it's like someone's swapped you out for a forgery. You seem like you're going through the motions."

One of the most interesting characters in the novel is Elaine, Joan's friend from the dance company. She is a better dancer than Joan, and has a long-time relationship with the dancer who founded their company. Shipstead could have another entire novel from Elaine's point-of-view.

Astonish Me is another brava performance from Shipstead. Joan is a fascinating protagonist, so complicated and although she is so closed up, Shipstead lets us see inside to who she really is. Fans of ballet will definitely like this insider's look.

rating 5 of 5 stars

Book Report: Shipstead's debut a promising character study

My review of Maggie Shipstead's Seating Arrangements  from the Citizen website
Shipstead's debut a promising character study : Diane Larue

Maggie Shipstead & J. Courtney Sullivan in Conversation

Maggie Shipstead & J. Courtney Sullivan

Shipstead poses with her novel

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a fascinating conversation between J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Maine and Maggie Shipstead, author of Seating Arrangements at Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side in Manhattan.

Sullivan began, reading from her novel about four women from one family who meet up at the family summer home in Maine. She read the scene where young, unmarried and pregnant Maggie arrives with her friend instead of her boyfriend, much to the consternation of her grandmother.

Shipstead read from chapter two of her book, where her protagonist, middle-aged Winn, remembers how his daughter Daphne, who is pregnant and getting married this weekend, wanted him to tell her she was  "his princess" when she was a young child. He was truly unable to understand his daughter.

I read the first two chapters of Seating Arrangements while waiting, and I was struck by how well-crafted her sentences were. I asked her if she did extensive rewrites to get that, but they just come to her that way.

There are some fantastic WASP-y names in her novel (Biddy, Greyson, Sterling) set on an island off Cape Cod, and Shipstead said she got them from a trophy room in a Rhode Island resort. They were on lawn bowling trophies from the 1950s.

There was discussion about a topic that has come up recently- unlikable characters. Maine has Alice, the matriarch of the family who has no qualms about saying whatever she is thinking, no matter whom it hurts. Sullivan was slightly taken aback by the many comments from reviewers and readers who didn't like Alice. I did wonder though if older women identified with Alice or if they disliked her as well.

She has great affection for Ann Marie, the dutiful daughter-in-law in the novel. I have to agree, I liked Ann Marie best, her journey in the novel was moving, and I think many people would identify with her.

Winn in Seating Arrangements is also a somewhat unlikeable character. Sullivan mentioned that Washington Post book reviewer Ron Charles wrote that he loved Winn, which brought a chuckle from the crowd. Shipstead said that Winn "obeys a set or rules that he came up with and follows them."

I don't dislike it when there are unlikable characters in a novel; to me, it is better to be unlikable than boring. If I'm reading a book and the characters are just plain uninteresting, I lose interest in the book. But give me a complicated, flawed character who is interesting, and I'm buying into the novel.   I mean, Walter White from TV's Breaking Bad and Don Draper from Mad Men are not nice guys, but you can't take your eyes off them when they are on screen.

Sullivan also gave a shout-out to author Maile Meloy, who wrote two brilliant books I read a few years ago, Liars & Saints and A Family Daughter, and I almost jumped out of my seat when she mentioned her, thereby making my geekiness official. I loved those books and I was so excited to hear Sullivan give Meloy props.

Maine is now in paperback, and my review of Seating Arrangements will be in the Citizen and online at auburnpub.com on August 12th. I'll post the link when it is live.