Book Review: The Turnout by, Megan Abbott

 “Satin, cardboard, burlap, paper hardened with glue - that’s all they were, pointe shoes. But they were so much more, the beating heart of ballet. And the fact that they lasted only weeks or less than an hour made them all the more so, like a skin you shed constantly. Then a new skin arrived, needed to be shaped.”

In The Turnout by, Megan Abbott, the Durant sisters, Dara and Marie, run their mother’s ballet school with the assistance of Dara’s husband Charlie. An “accident” occurs at the studio, which opens the door for Derek, a contractor, to puncture Dara, Marie and Charlie’s insular life. Thus, tension builds up between the sisters and Derek, events spiral out of control, and all right before the school’s annual Nutcracker performance. 

There is only so much I can say about the plot, as this is classified as a thriller and even small details will spoil major plot points. So, I’ll focus on themes that interested me while being spoiler-free. 

I mentioned this in my halfway review of this book and I think it needs to be reiterated - This. Book. Is. Weird! And you know what, I’m here for it! The Turnout is grimy, claustrophobic, animalic, intense, carnal, and ripe with sexual tension (the innuendos are limitless…), which is not something that typically comes to mind when one thinks of ballet. When people think of ballet, they think of long, lean, graceful dancers who seem to float effortlessly in their intricate tutus and satin shoes. Abbott did this on purpose because many non-dancers don’t understand how difficult ballet really is. 

Side bar: True story, a guy came up to me in the gym recently after my ballet class and asked if ballet improves flexibility. (My guy… yes.) I then went on to tell him that ballet is the most difficult thing I’ve physically done with and to my body. Lifting weights in the gym with my physical therapist a few years ago while I was recovering from a knee injury, was easier than what my instructor sometimes asks us to do. The look of incredulity was apparent on his face. I told him if he wants to push himself physically, take ballet. (He  took a flyer and is contemplating signing up for the beginner’s class…). Also, I’m still waiting for the toenail on my left big toe to fall off. It’s just taking it’s sweet time...

 

In The Turnout, Abbott creates a world of dualities - Innocence vs. Carnality; youth vs. adulthood; femininity vs. masculinity; pain vs. pleasure; beauty vs. ugliness and so on. 

“To her, all dancers’ feet were beautiful, beautiful not in spite of but because of their hardness, their contortions, their battle against nature, against the body itself. ‘What could be more beautiful,’ she used to say, ‘than a will like that?’” 

From the first page of this book, I was on the look out to see why Abbott titled this book The Turnout. Turnout is crucial in ballet - it refers to how flexible a dancer is at the hips; the goal is to have the thigh get as parallel as possible from that joint that connects it to the hip. This helps produce those long, graceful lines and extensions that ballet dancers are known for. “Turnout” is mentioned several times throughout the novel. Dancers seek to achieve a perfect turnout, and when  it is achieved, it’s admired and considered a milestone. Abbott is using turnout here as a sexual metaphor, as the turnout requires an opening up from the hips. There is pre-turnout (virginal) and post-turnout (a right-of-passage). 

“… or the first time they achieved turnout, rotating their legs from their hip sockets, bodies pushed to contortion. Pushed so far, the feel ecstatic. Her first time, Dara felt split open, laid bare.”

(Disclaimer: please don’t force your turnout. There are even professional dancers who don’t have a perfect turnout because some of it is based on each individual’s anatomy. You can really injure yourself and mess up your hips.)

Using turnout as a sexual metaphor falls right in line with why Abbott selected The Nutcrack to run in the background of this book. The Nutcracker is often the gateway into ballet for many people - dancers and non-dancers alike. It symbolizes innocence, as the main character Clara ventures into a fantastical world with the Nutcracker Prince. All of this also ties in with Derek…

“She becomes fixated with her little Nutcracker. So fixated she sneaks back out to find him after the family goes to bed. She falls asleep with it in her arms, lost in fantasy until the doll becomes alive as a full-size man. It’s a parable, no?”

Overall, this was a strange novel and I’ve never read anything quite like it. It’s dark, twisted, straddles some lines and definitely gave me slight Lolita vibes (this coming from a person who read Lolita and was grossed out but mind-blown at the same time). It’s also obvious that Abbott did her research about ballet. Many of the references and terms made me chuckle. I really enjoyed Abbott’s writing style - it’s direct, sharp, a bit acerbic, but not too bare. It’s definitely not flowery. This writing style really suited a novel like this, because it’s all abut the claustrophobic tension - the writing style does not get in the way at all and in fact, as I was reading I actually forgot about the writing, which is a weird thing to say, but it works and this is not easy for a writer to do. This was a page turner and I really enjoyed The Turnout. I may have to look into some of Abbott’s other novels. 

Rating: 3.5/5

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