Review: City of Night Birds

Juhea Kim, City of Night Birds  (Ecco 2024)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/209801563-city-of-night-birds?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_20

Once-famous prima ballerina Natalia touches down in once-familiar St. Petersburg, the city of her first fame, her first love. She hasn’t danced in two years. A string quartet plays Vivaldi, ‘not far from where [they]’d lain’.
Dimitri—Dima—has sought her out. He offers her a job—to dance Giselle. An added incentive, the role of Albrecht will be danced by a primo, TaeHyung Kim. Has her injury healed enough to allow rising to this challenge?
‘Your injury,’ says Dima, ‘it’s mostly in your head.’ Natalia remembers other wounds she needs to heal, an absent father, a struggling single mother, from whom her fame estranges her, other loves she lost. The relentless, punishing rehearsals as she pirouettes her way to the top. The back-stabbing of jealous rivals.
The most important loves in one’s life are ‘those who turn your weakness into strength’. There is one person above all others whom she dances to impress. The greatest performance of her career, the Moscow International, and he wasn’t even watching.
To be the prima ballerina of the decade takes more than rehearsals; she must dig deep inside herself to something beyond talent, muscle and choreography.
The glamourous yet cut-throat world of professional ballet is beautifully written—the terrifying teacher, the friend-rivals ‘like geese that fly in formation’—as is the intimate peeks into Russian culture. The metaphors are superb. Plunged into the beautiful and fully immersive world of competitive ballet, you taste the cold vodka and the hot tea sweetened with raspberry jam, feel the blisters from pointe shoes and the relaxation of the banya (sauna), hear the air-kiss greetings of the Parisian glitterati.
This book treats the strong emotions—shame, ambition, desire, disappointment, elation, jealousy, love. ‘Art at its highest form is dangerous,’ and this novel aims for the heights.
This review first appeared in Historical Novels Review.