A Review of Bunheads by Sophie Flack

Little, Brown (Poppy), 2011

By REBECCA, March 16, 2012

characters

Hannah: Ballet dancer increasingly conflicted about dedicating her whole life to dance

Jacob: Meet-cute “spontaneous” dilettante who wants to show Hannah the world (of NYC)

Zoe: Hannah’s frenemy; super-rich dance-type with an eye for couture and a nasty streak

Bea: The nice one, and Hannah’s partner in . . . conversation and healthy snacks

Daisy: New addition to the MB and a poster-girl for eating disorders

Matt: Balletomane extraordinaire, he woos H with pricey gifts and low demands on her time

hook

Hannah has dedicated her life to the prestige of the Manhattan Ballet to the total exclusion of a life outside the theatre—I mean, she can’t even finish Frankenstein, although props for good taste. When she meets Jacob, a non-dancer, she begins to question whether it has all been worth it, amidst grueling training, harsh competition, and a veritable treasure trove of lycra.

Photograph: Carla Portugal

worldview

This is a dance book, so the world is the theatre. Hannah moved to Manhattan when she was 14 (she is 19 when the book begins) and has done nothing but dance ever since. She’s never had a boyfriend or friends who weren’t dancers; she’s never even been as far South as Chinatown. Everything that she and her friends do and talk about is in service of becoming stronger, getting thinner, getting a good part, being promoted to soloist. Occasionally peppered in are some mentions of boys, clothes, and gossip. This makes for competitive ladies with very uncompromising views about food, exercise, performance, and personal lives. They recognize that what they do pushes their bodies and minds to extraordinary and often painful limits, but they value the pain and scorn those who don’t have such single-minded focus and dedication:

“‘You’re a dancer, and you’ve got social currency. Why waste it on a college guy? Pedestrians go to college.’ In the world of ballet, pedestrian is the word for a normal person. It’s somewhat derogatory, especially when Zoe says it” (91).

This is, in other words, a world that you’re either interested in or you aren’t. I saw Bunheads at the library and picked it up mainly because I love musicals and dance movies (and because I thought the title was amusing). As such, I imagined that I would be Bunheads‘ ideal audience. As it turns out, I like dance movies because they are melodramas that don’t simply have melody they also have dancing!—danceodramas. Besides, there is always dancing on fire escapes and triumphal boo-yah posing in the faces of bullies, the self-satisfied, or a panel of judges who don’t think you deserve to be a dancer because you’re a welder, just . . . for example.

The obvious problem with a dance book, then = no dancing. No visible dancing, just peri-dance business, which was not very interesting to me, although I think it could have been. And, lest you think this merely bespeaks a lack of interest in the details of how things are done on my part, you should know that I read the bullet-pressing, head-cheese-making, meat-smoking, sugaring scenes in the Little House books on an annual basis. With glee. There was something so matter-of-fact about the way the world was portrayed here that it didn’t quite allow for the kind of world-building that is required of books set in unfamiliar contexts just as in those set in made-up worlds. There are a few great descriptions of how the girls smash their toe-shoes in the doors to break the boxes, which results in a dressing room door that doesn’t close properly. I’m not exactly sure why the rest of the details didn’t bring the world to life, but they didn’t, quite. So, without the head-spinning, foot-tapping delight of dance in the book, it is more accurate to describe Bunheads as a basic romance- and realization-plot set against the backdrop of a very stressful job that occasionally sounds rewarding and glamorous.

what was the book’s intention? did it live up to that intention?

Since this is the story of a year in Hannah’s life when she realizes that there are other things in the world than ballet, Bunheads gives us glimpses of the contrast between the Manhattan Ballet and the world outside its walls. Sophie Flack does a good job of painting Hannah’s exhaustion, pressure, responsibility, fear, and desperation, to show how it’s possible for such a curious young woman to be so incredibly cut off from the world. The main drama here isn’t the question of whether Hannah will choose to date Jacob or Matt, or whether Jacob will finally get sick of Hannah’s total lack of time or willingness to compromise her schedule. The essential drama is Hannah figuring out whether ballet is enough for her if it means sacrificing all her other interests. This is a very big decision and one I think many of us can relate to, so I’m totally sympathetic to that decision-making process. But, well, it ain’t real dramatic.

Rockwell Kent, Moby Dick

It could have been, though. The biggest impediment for me in caring about any of the characters in Bunheads was that they are not much more than dance-machines. Oh, Hannah is clearly interested in things—in addition to her attempts to read Frankenstein, after Jacob compares her drive to dance with Captain Ahab’s monomania, she orders Moby Dick online (good luck fitting “Cetology” in between rehearsals). But even she is . . . well, boring. That is to say, she never makes interesting comments or has interesting conversations, seemingly because she has nothing to talk about but ballet. One of the best things about Bunheads, then, is that I reached the end of the book hoping that Hannah might be able to become as interesting as she has the potential to be.

Similarly, her dancer friends are pretty flat: there’s the mean one, the nice one, and the young one. I couldn’t really care about them enough to pay  attention to which one was talking—but I didn’t have to pay attention: if it was mean, it was Zoe; nice, it was Bea; about bingeing, purging, or being dissatisfied with herself, it was Daisy. And, the thing is, I didn’t get the sense that Hannah even cared much about them. Matt, the high society ballet fan who dates a different company member each year, was sleazy and disgusting and I couldn’t help but judge Hannah for accepting anything from him, even as I tried to tell myself that maybe she was just naïve as opposed to mercenary. Still, I could totally understand why he was appealing in his total lack of demands on her, in comparison with Jacob.

Ah, Jacob. Bunheads’ clearest intention seemed to be showing how Jacob was a catalyst (or at least an inspiration) for Hannah’s revived interest in the world. Now, don’t get me wrong, he’s fine. Still, though, just a brief sketch of a type: sweet, open, artistic, into film, and has cultivated a brag-network of quirky rooftops and views all over New York City. That is, he’s a character we’ve definitely seen before.

Photograph: Dane Shitagi

Overall, Bunheads is a totally competent novel—well-paced, capably-written, and with enough sparkling moments that it feels worthwhile to read on—it just didn’t compel my attention. This was mainly, I think, because the characters’ lack of anything non-dance related makes them seem like twelve-year olds experiencing everything for the first time (kisses, uncertainty, Brooklyn). The writing reflects this, explaining things to the reader as if she were similarly inexperienced. For most readers, the ideas and experiences that are interesting or novel to Hannah will seem obvious and banal. Still, I think it will certainly appeal to some, and Flack’s expertise with the material of a dance company is clear.

personal disclosure

The main thing that interested me about Bunheads was Sophie Flack, herself. Flack was a dancer with the New York City Ballet and seems to have written an extremely autobiographical novel (Hannah, the acknowledgements tell me, is Flack’s sister, and her partner’s name is Josh). Flack retired from dance in 2009 (and now studies English at Columbia) and published Bunheads in 2011; whether or not it is the novel for me, that’s wicked impressive. Moreover, I’d definitely be interested in seeing what she writes next now that the autobiographical novel is out of the way.

readalikes

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen (2006). Dessen’s protag deals with a modeling career she’s not sure she wants anymore, and learns to be honest from a musical love interest. Ignore the embarrassing cover—it’s really good.

Audition by Stasia Ward Kehoe (2011). Like Hannah, Sarah moves to NYC to single-mindedly pursue dance, but also discovers a passion for writing and must choose which path to take.

Dance Academy. Rather entertaining Australian dance show that I may or may not have watched on Netflix instant all in one shame-filled, unproductive day.

Procured from: the library