An engrossing ballet novel asks whether becoming a star is worth the sacrifice

In a 1976 book showcasing his career, Mikhail Baryshnikov, arguably the greatest dancer of his generation, proclaimed, “Nobody is born a dancer; you have to want it more than anything.”
The relentless dedication ballet requires, and the havoc it wreaks on the bodies and minds of its students, has been an endless source of fascination for storytellers. From stage to screen to books, ballet dancers have personified the human drive toward excellence and been presented as cautionary tales of creative ambition run amok. Torn Achilles tendons and permanently disfigured toes mirror the destructive relationships and self-images that often characterize dancers’ lives, all in service of making it in an industry with slim odds of success.
More than anything, the heroine of “City of Night Birds,” the sophomore effort from “Beasts of a Little Land” author Juhea Kim, wants to be the best ballerina in the world. Like Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev before her, Natalia Leonova is what her beloved aunt calls a “jumper,” able to perform gravity-defying leaps through the air. Despite a lack of finances and support — her mother is often indifferent and her father absent — Natalia rises quickly in the world of ballet. But, as is often the case, success has its price.
Kim delivers all the juicy drama readers have come to expect from a ballerina’s tale: punishing rehearsals resulting in gruesome injuries; petty jealousies between romantic and professional rivals; nail-biting competitions lost and won. The results will likely keep dance fans ravenously turning pages, but what distinguishes the work is its treatment of the dilemma at the center of many books about artistic obsession: Is it all worth it?
The novel opens in 2019, which serves as its present day, with Natalia downing vodka as she flies into St. Petersburg. There she was first a student, then a star, at the esteemed Mariinsky Ballet. At her hotel she takes bottles of Champagne and pills to bed. The next day she runs into Dmitri Ostrovsky, a gifted but spiteful dancer whom Natalia considers her archnemesis. Dmitri offers her a job dancing “Giselle” at Mariinsky because, until the accident that kept her from the stage for two years, Natalia moved tickets. As enticement, Dmitri sends a pair of ballet slippers to the hotel, an assertive approach Natalia resents because she is “a leaver” who despises “people who cling.”
From there, the narrative moves back and forth between the present, when Natalia attempts to recover her strength to perform “Giselle,” and the past that brought her to this moment.
Raised by an abusive mother who “couldn’t teach me happiness because she’d never been happy,” 7-year-old Natalia wants to escape the childhood that made her unable to trust people. Fame, she believes, means those who hurt her will only “see my face…in photographs.” Her aunt helps her pass an audition for Vaganova, a top ballet school in Russia, despite Natalia’s “Greek,” or bad, feet.
Natalia has studied at Vaganova for three years by the time she qualifies to compete at Varna, an international ballet competition. Ignoring her teacher’s warning that “no true artists are driven by the desire to be the best,” Natalia resolves to become the better dancer after she’s outdone by Alexander, known as Sasha, a handsome Casanova who dances with an “utterly Dionysian” quality. Her relationship with Sasha, who her mother and aunt believe “had the look of those men who destroy lives, either their own or others,” is both a blessing and curse after the two become dance partners and lovers.
In the present at Mariinsky, still recovering from her accident, Natalia soothes her pain with vodka and Xanax and fantasizes about leaving St. Petersburg for the countryside. The goal is to jump again. Her faithful friend Nina, herself a talented dancer, keeps Natalia mentally afloat. Nina, who has chosen having a family over fame, confides in Natalia about her own challenges. The two women journey to the grave of Natalia’s mother, who recently passed, a loss that contributes to Natalia’s deep sense of loneliness but also offers a chance to begin healing.
While Natalia’s star as a dancer rose, her relationship with her mother cooled, as did most of her friendships. Soon after she becomes the world’s most celebrated ballerina, she realizes “the true cost of accomplishing something…is that the moment you get it, you realize that it’s not enough.” Though this is not an original revelation, Kim’s authentic depiction of her heroine’s struggles and character flaws elevates the story as she traces the ballerina’s journey from eager-eyed youth to jaded superstar betrayed by an art that fails and sustains her in equal measure.
Natalia’s dissatisfaction with every level of success drives her deeper into a search for meaning and purpose. Like many artists, she is torn between endlessly chasing a dream and living an ordinary but more peaceful life.
In her youth, Natalia chooses her career: She wants a promotion to first soloist at Mariinsky. But she won’t get it unless she brings home a medal from a competition in Moscow, where she will encounter both Sasha and Dmitri. The timeline of this novel can be challenging to track. But Kim deftly builds up the tension to the pivotal competition, which helps seal the fate of Natalia’s relationships and career, as does the political situation when Russia invades Crimea. Natalia presumes she is in control, but the secrets held by her loved ones, including a long-lost friend who has news about her father, ultimately determine her destiny.
A welcome addition to the literary dance canon, “City of Night Birds” is most compelling when its interpersonal dramas test the novel’s central question: whether, as one character opines, “Love doesn’t set anyone free. Art does.”
Laura Warrell is the author of the novel “Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm.”