As of this post, I’m a little past the halfway mark of The Turnout by, Megan Abbott. This is my first time reading an Abbott novel and … this is a weird reading experience [emoji].
This is supposed to be weird, so Abbott is succeeding here.
The Turnout is thriller that hones in on Dara, Marie and Charlie, who own a ballet studio together - the studio started by Dara and Marie’s mother. Charlie and Dara are married and Marie… Marie is odd. Dara is definitely the level headed, more sensible of the twins, while there seems to be something … underdeveloped about Marie, as if she’s still a child living in a 30-something year old’s body. I don’t really have a grasp on Charlie, as he always seems subdued - which I think Abbott did deliberately. Charlie can no longer dance, as he suffered a debilitating dance accident and has to take daily pain killers.
Once an accident happens as the studio, the delicate and insular world of home and ballet that Dara, Charlie and Marie exist in begins to quickly unravel. A fourth individual, Derek, permeates their lives and unbalances everything. Also, The Nutcracker is in the periphery, as the ballet school is gearing up for their annual performances.
Like I said, this book is weird and there’s only so much I can say, because with thrillers, it’s easy to give something away. Also, with still half of the story left to go, I’m still in limbo.
The Turnout is packed with so many juxtapositions - gracefulness and harshness, innocence and carnality, youth and maturity, femininity and masculinity. There is this constant under current of sexuality - specifically female sexuality, that runs throughout the novel and Abbott uses ballet as a way to symbolize how female sexuality has this intensity, strength and even animalic urge humming just beneath it’s surface. The gracefulness of a dancer, the long lean lines, the ease in which they seem to move, the pink, the lace, the perfection, can only come to be through constant training, blood, sweat, and pain that is gratifying in a different way. Pain and pleasure straddle a fine line and only through pushing through that pain is perfection and pleasure achieved.
Abbott has created a world of ballet that is actually a bit grimy - it’s dirty and gritty beneath the surface. She does play on the stereotypes that the world of ballet is conniving, ruthless and that these dancers will do anything to achieve that perfect, slender physical aesthetic. One would be naive to think that any industry does not have it’s skeletons in the closet and ballet is no exception, though I can see how some readers may not like how Abbott portrays ballet here. Though change in the world of ballet has been slower than that of even the modeling industry, it is changing. For me, it doesn’t bother me because Abbott is using these elements to only enhance the dark, almost claustrophobic atmosphere of the novel.
There is also a slight Lolita vibe I’m picking up on and it’s weirding me out.
But once I pick up this novel, I can’t put it down. Abbott sucks me and I’m so weirded out and disturbed, yet so intrigued at the same time. And I’m a little nervous for some reason…
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