Sari Wilson

Long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize An Amazon Best Book of the Month A Buzzfeed Most Exciting Book of the Year A The Millions Most Anticipated Book of the Year & Bestseller Selected as a Skimm Read A Refinery 29 Best Book of the Year Chosen as a Rumpus Book Club Selection Chosen as a Bustle Best Literary Debut Novel Written By Women in the Last 5 Years An enthralling literary debut that tells the story of a young girl’s coming of age in the cutthroat world of New York City ballet—a story of obsession and the quest for perfection, trust and betrayal, beauty and lost innocence. In the roiling summer of 1977, eleven-year-old Mira is an aspiring ballerina in the romantic, highly competitive world of New York City ballet. Enduring the mess of her parent’s divorce, she finds escape in dance—the rigorous hours of practice, the exquisite beauty, the precision of movement, the obsessive perfectionism. Ballet offers her control, power, and the promise of glory. It also introduces her to forty-seven-year-old Maurice DuPont, a reclusive, charismatic balletomane who becomes her mentor. Over the course of three years, Mira is accepted into the prestigious School of American Ballet run by the legendary George Balanchine, and eventually becomes one of “Mr. B’s girls”—a dancer of rare talent chosen for greatness. As she ascends higher in the ballet world, her relationship with Maurice intensifies, touching dark places within herself and sparking unexpected desires that will upend both their lives. In the present day, Kate, a professor of dance at a Midwestern college, embarks on a risky affair with a student that threatens to obliterate her career and capsizes the new life she has painstakingly created for her reinvented self. When she receives a letter from a man she’s long thought dead, Kate is hurled back into the dramas of a past she thought she had left behind. Told in interweaving narratives that move between past and present, Girl Through Glass illuminates the costs of ambition, secrets, and the desire for beauty, and reveals how the sacrifices we make for an ideal can destroy—or save—us.

A Novel

Girl Through Glass

Rok 1977. Jedenastoletnia Mira ucieka w taniec, żeby nie uczestniczyć w kłótniach rodziców. Balet, poprzez rygorystyczne zajęcia, mordercze treningi i obsesję perfekcjonizmu, daje jej poczucie kontroli, siłę i obietnicę sukcesu. Jej mentorem zostaje dużo starszy, charyzmatyczny Maurice. Wkrótce Mira zostaje przyjęta do prestiżowej szkoły baletowej, której dyrektor wiąże z młodą uczennicą wielkie nadzieje. W miarę upływu lat relacja Miry z Maurice’em staje się coraz bardziej intensywna, co naznaczy ich piętnem na całe życie. Rok 2016. Kate, profesor tańca w college’u, wdaje się w romans ze studentem. Ten ryzykowny krok może zagrozić nie tylko jej karierze, ale też precyzyjnie ułożonemu planowi na życie. Kiedy Kate otrzymuje list od mężczyzny, którego długo uważała za zmarłego, musi wrócić do dramatów z przeszłości, o których dawno już zapomniała. Patrz, jak tańczę to gorzka opowieść o cenie, jaką trzeba zapłacić za ambicję, umiłowanie piękna i pragnienie miłości. Tragiczny obraz dziewczyny, która zbyt szybko zasmakowała w podziwie, przedstawiony z punktu widzenia dorosłej tancerki – z dużą dojrzałością, a jednocześnie żarliwą naiwnością. „Washington Post” To książka nie tyle o balecie, ile o cenie, jaką płaci się za młodzieńczy talent. „New York Times Book Review” Sari Wilson – tańczyła w nowojorskim Harkness Ballet, była także uczestniczką stypendium New Ballet School założonej przez Eliota Felda. Brała udział w programach artystycznych Wallace Stegner Fellowship na Stanford University oraz Provincetown Fine Arts Center. Pierwsze teksty publikowała w pismach literackich: „Agni”, „Oxford American”, „Slice” i „Third Coast”. Autorka mieszka na Brooklynie z córką i mężem, rysownikiem Joshem Neufeldem. Patrz, jak tańczę (2016) to powieściowy debiut Sari Wilson.

Patrz jak tańczę

Josh Neufeld

Flashed is an anthology of linked flash fiction in comics and prose by 45 star cartoonists and fiction writers. Edited by Josh Neufeld and Sari Wilson, Flashed is unlike anything you've seen before: a call- and-response among today's most exciting authors-and between the forms of prose and comics.

Sudden Stories in Comics and Prose

Flashed

An enthralling literary debut that tells the story of a young girl’s coming of age in the cutthroat world of New York City ballet—a story of obsession and the quest for perfection, trust and betrayal, beauty and lost innocence. In the roiling summer of 1977, eleven-year-old Mira is an aspiring ballerina in the romantic, highly competitive world of New York City ballet. Enduring the mess of her parent’s divorce, she finds escape in dance—the rigorous hours of practice, the exquisite beauty, the precision of movement, the obsessive perfectionism. Ballet offers her control, power, and the promise of glory. It also introduces her to forty-seven-year-old Maurice DuPont, a reclusive, charismatic balletomane who becomes her mentor. Over the course of three years, Mira is accepted into the prestigious School of American Ballet run by the legendary George Balanchine, and eventually becomes one of “Mr. B’s girls”—a dancer of rare talent chosen for greatness. As she ascends higher in the ballet world, her relationship with Maurice intensifies, touching dark places within herself and sparking unexpected desires that will upend both their lives. In the present day, Kate, a professor of dance at a Midwestern college, embarks on a risky affair with a student that threatens to obliterate her career and capsizes the new life she has painstakingly created for her reinvented self. When she receives a letter from a man she’s long thought dead, Kate is hurled back into the dramas of a past she thought she had left behind. Told in interweaving narratives that move between past and present, Girl Through Glass illuminates the costs of ambition, secrets, and the desire for beauty, and reveals how the sacrifices we make for an ideal can destroy—or save—us.

Sari Wilson

About

Books

Join the club