Critical Praise

"In this breathtaking suite of short stories, Sharp, herself a dancer and ardent observer of the ballet world, adroitly captures the elegance, magic, sexuality, obsession, ambition, sacrifice, vulnerability, and pain that define dancers' lives . . . . Most ballets are about thwarted longing and love, and so are Sharp's masterfully choreographed dramas."

——Booklist (starred and boxed review)

"A series of intimate portraits of the men and women who sacrifice their chances at ordinary happiness . . . as they strive to transform themselves into visions of near-celestial beauty and grace. . . . White Swan, Black Swan compels us to consider the troubled hearts and souls inside the agile bodies that astonish us with their ability to defy gravity and to exceed our wildest dreams of what the body can do."

——Francine Prose, O Magazine

"A stunningly lovely book about dance and dancers and their hard-won moments of beauty. . . . I can't believe it's a debut work–it's brilliantly clear, dramatically swift, and knowingly conceived."

——John Casey, Author of The Half-Life of Happiness

"Adrienne Sharp writes with breathtaking perception about the needs and desires of the body, its resilience and its vulnerabilities. Art, passion, history intersect with burning immediacy in this beautifully crafted book."

——Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Author of The Mistress of Spices