The Cranes Dance (Vintage Contemporaries Original) [Paperback]

Meg Howrey (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 15, 2012 | Series: Vintage Contemporaries Original

 I threw my neck out in the middle of Swan Lake last night.

So begins the tale of Kate Crane, a soloist in a celebrated New York City ballet company who is struggling to keep her place in a very demanding world. At every turn she is haunted by her close relationship with her younger sister, Gwen, a fellow company dancer whose career quickly surpassed Kate’s, but who has recently suffered a breakdown and returned home.
 
Alone for the first time in her life, Kate is anxious and full of guilt about the role she may have played in her sister’s collapse.  As we follow her on an insider tour of rehearsals, performances, and partners onstage and off, she confronts the tangle of love, jealousy, pride, and obsession that are beginning to fracture her own sanity. Funny, dark, intimate, and unflinchingly honest, The Cranes Dance is a book that pulls back the curtains to reveal the private lives of dancers and explores the complicated bond between sisters.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A page-turning narrative…Howrey captures the intricacies of an ambitious and thwarted ballerina dealing with the weight of her younger sister’s success in the same field.”
—Vogue.com

“An engrossing novel about the cutthroat world of New York City ballet, without the hallucinations…The Cranes Dance is an addictive, absorbing take on competition and sisterhood. B+”
—Entertainment Weekly (Must List, 5/18)

"The Cranes Dance holds the door open to the candy store—the sacrosanct world of ballet—and I couldn’t be happier for the privilege.  It’s fresh and often hilarious, sharp and adroit.  Finding out who’s behind that stage curtain, really behind the curtain, makes for utterly engaging reading.  I love this novel!" —Amanda Boyden, author of Pretty Little Dirty
 
“Howrey’s engaging new novel exposes the competitive world of professional ballet through Kate Crane, a charmingly sarcastic ballerina at a crossroads. . . . Kate is an ideal guide to an unfamiliar world, from her irreverent explanations of her ballets (Howrey was a professional dancer) to her relatable self-doubt and honesty. Her revelations about family, talent, and what makes us special create a thought-provoking and entertaining read.” —Publishers Weekly

“Witty, sharp and exhilarating. . . . A tale of sibling rivalry, youthful ambition and dreams lost and found.” —Susan Fales-Hill, author of One Flight Up  
 
“With its universal themes of ambition and competition, sisterhood and sacrifice, it will appeal to bad dancers as well as balletomanes—an addictive, readable delight.” —Caroline Weber, author of Queen of Fashion

“Playful and smart, Meg Howrey’s fresh voice unveils an eye opening tale about the secretive and obsessive world of ballet.” —Amanda Foreman, author of A World on Fire

About the Author

Meg Howrey was a professional dancer and actress. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Original edition (May 15, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307949826
• ISBN-13: 978-0307949820
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #190,540 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars The Cranes Dance April 17, 2012

By Leeanna Chetsko VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Kate Crane is a soloist at a prestigious New York ballet company. It's almost but not quite the culmination of her life's dream. She's not a principal -- that went to Gwen, her younger sister. In case you don't know, a principal is the highest rank in a company. Principals dance the starring roles.

But Gwen is back home with their parents, recuperating from a mysterious breakdown. Kate is living in Gwen's apartment and slowly going mad. After she throws her neck out doing Swan Lake -- a serious injury that she covers with Vicodin and ice -- Kate pirouettes her way into a tailspin of doubt and destructive behavior.

Kate isn't sure if she's responsible for Gwen's dive off the deep end. I don't want to spoil it for you, but once you learn about some of Gwen's "symptoms," including obsessive compulsive behaviors, the catalyst for the novel is predictable. "The Cranes Dance" starts off after Gwen's breakdown, and there's a fair number of flashbacks about the sisters' past. Should Kate have seen it coming? Should she have done X? Should she have done Y?

I understand sibling rivalry very well, but Kate's focus on Gwen eventually irritated me. It got to be a bit much, and I wanted to skip over those passages and get back to the dancing. Happily, there was a lot of that. I've read a few books recently that are supposed to be about ballet, but there's practically nothing about ballet in them. "The Cranes Dance" delivered well on that aspect, and with the author's past as a dancer, it's believable and realistic, too.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Cranes Dance September 7, 2012

By Sandra Brazier VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Kate Crane and her sister, Gwen, are professional ballerinas. Both sisters feel the pressure of their profession, but Kate is left alone after Gwen has a nervous breakdown. Even though Gwen is away recuperating, Kate still feels preoccupied with the closeness that binds her to her sister, almost as if her absent sister is an albatross. She is riddled with guilt and questions reality. Kate is obsessed with worries about her sister. She also starts to experience problems of her own.

This book is fun, because Kate, the main character, speaks directly to the reader. In this way, the author really brings the reader into an intimate relationship with Kate and the other characters.

I enjoyed this book very much, because I have always been very interested in ballet. I savored all the intimate details about ballet and Pointe. I wonder, though, if someone who is not as interested in ballet, would enjoy this book as much. The characters were well developed and likeable and the book was well written, but there is not a tremendous amount of excitement and tension within this plot.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Dysfunctional family + ballet... July 31, 2012

By Larry Hoffer

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Kate Crane is a soloist in a famed New York ballet company. She's never quite achieved true fame, but she is well-respected and has the opportunity to dance many featured roles in a number of ballets. Her younger sister, Gwen, also a ballet dancer in the same company, quickly eclipsed Kate in terms of talent and stardom, but after injuring herself and suffering a bit of a breakdown, Gwen has returned to their childhood home in Michigan. Gwen's absence gives Kate the opportunity to dance outside of her sister's shadow, but it also leaves her alone with her own thoughts of guilt, for recognizing Gwen's symptoms long ago but not getting her the help she needed, as well as her own obsessions of perfection. "At some point you did something perfectly and now your whole life is a search to re-create that," Kate said at one point in the book.

The Cranes Dance follows Kate as she starts getting the chance to play a more prominent role in the ballet company as she struggles with an injury of her own, as well as questioning about her talent and her own mental toughness. Her relationships with her friends and mentors are fraught with unspoken tension caused by one issue or another, and she finds herself torn between wanting Gwen to recover and return to New York City, and not wanting to have to be her sister's keeper any longer. This book gives a warts-and-all glimpse into the ballet world, the different personalities that occupy it, and the passions that drive it. (Meg Howrey was once a professional dancer, so her authenticity rings true.)

I really enjoyed this book because it was more than just a story about a ballet company--it is a story about relationships, a story about battling your demons and coming to terms with your own strengths and weaknesses, and a story about how you can find yourself simultaneously needing and resenting the same person. Kate's voice is at times humorous, sarcastic, needy, sad, hopeful, and passionate, and Howrey juggles all of those emotions quite well. Kate and Gwen's relationship is a very complex one, and Howrey straddles a fine line between who did the hurting and who wound up hurt. It's a very enjoyable and compelling read, and I'd highly recommend Howrey's first book, Blind Sight, which I loved last year, and included it on my list of the best books I read in 2011.