Best Seller
Loading
Dances
Paperback
$21.00
Published on Mar 05, 2024 | 304 Pages
A ballerina at the height of her powers becomes consumed with finding her missing brother in this “striking debut” (Oprah Daily).
“A compelling novel about the spiritual and bodily costs of the dogged pursuit of art.”—Raven Leilani, author of Luster
LONGLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION • LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD
At twenty-two years old, Cece Cordell reaches the pinnacle of her career as a ballet dancer when she’s promoted to principal at the New York City Ballet. She’s instantly catapulted into celebrity, heralded for her “inspirational” role as the first Black ballerina in the famed company’s history. Even as she celebrates the achievement of a lifelong dream, Cece remains haunted by the feeling that she doesn’t belong. As she waits for some feeling of rightness that doesn’t arrive, she begins to unravel the loose threads of her past—an absent father, a pragmatic mother who dismisses Cece’s ambitions, and a missing older brother who stoked her childhood love of ballet but disappeared to deal with his own demons.
Soon after her promotion, Cece is faced with a choice that has the potential to derail her career and shatter the life she’s cultivated for herself, sending her on a pilgrimage to both find her brother and reclaim the parts of herself lost in the grinding machinery of the traditional ballet world.
Written with spellbinding beauty and ballet’s precise structure, Dances centers around women, art, and power, and how we come to define freedom for ourselves.
“A compelling novel about the spiritual and bodily costs of the dogged pursuit of art.”—Raven Leilani, author of Luster
LONGLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION • LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD
At twenty-two years old, Cece Cordell reaches the pinnacle of her career as a ballet dancer when she’s promoted to principal at the New York City Ballet. She’s instantly catapulted into celebrity, heralded for her “inspirational” role as the first Black ballerina in the famed company’s history. Even as she celebrates the achievement of a lifelong dream, Cece remains haunted by the feeling that she doesn’t belong. As she waits for some feeling of rightness that doesn’t arrive, she begins to unravel the loose threads of her past—an absent father, a pragmatic mother who dismisses Cece’s ambitions, and a missing older brother who stoked her childhood love of ballet but disappeared to deal with his own demons.
Soon after her promotion, Cece is faced with a choice that has the potential to derail her career and shatter the life she’s cultivated for herself, sending her on a pilgrimage to both find her brother and reclaim the parts of herself lost in the grinding machinery of the traditional ballet world.
Written with spellbinding beauty and ballet’s precise structure, Dances centers around women, art, and power, and how we come to define freedom for ourselves.
Author
Nicole Cuffy
Nicole Cuffy is a proud Brooklyn emigrant living in D.C. She holds a BA in Writing from Columbia University and an MFA in Fiction from The New School. She does her best writing by hand and is a high-functioning book addict. Her work can be found in Chautauqua, The Masters Review Volume VI, Blue Mesa Review, and the New England Review, and her chapbook “Atlas of the Body” was an editor’s choice and finalist for the Black River Chapbook Competition and winner of the Chautauqua Janus Prize. She is the author of Dances, longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and O Sinners!, finalist for the Westport Prize for Literature.
Learn More about Nicole Cuffy
