Astonish Me [Paperback]

For years Joan has been trying to forget her past, to find peace and satisfaction in her role as wife and mother. Few in her drowsy California suburb know her thrilling history: as a young American ballerina in Paris, she fell into a doomed, passionate romance with Soviet dance superstar Arslan Rusakov. After playing a leading role in his celebrated defection, Joan bowed out of the spotlight for good, heartbroken by Arslan and humbled by her own modest career.
 
But when her son turns out to be a ballet prodigy, Joan is pulled back into a world she thought she'd left behind—a world of dangerous secrets, of Arslan, and of longing for what will always be just out of reach.

“So dazzling, so sure-handed and fearless, that at times I had to remind myself to breathe.” —Maria Semple, author ofWhere’d You Go, Bernadette 
  
“A novel you must read.” —Ron Charles,The Washington Post 
 
“I will be paying close attention to Shipstead’s career from here on in.” —Jeffrey Eugenides
 
“A breathtaking work of art.” —O, The Oprah Magazine
 
“Precise…. Flawless…. Transcendent.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR
 
“A grand arabesque into the world of dance. . . . Thrilling.” —Time
 
“Electrifying. . . .Astonish Meshines.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“The inner lives of [Shipstead’s] characters feel as real and immediate as the shifting settings they inhabit: still-gritty mid-1970s Manhattan, shabbily elegant Paris, the sunbaked suburban sprawl of Southern California. . . . Shipstead’s youth may be a talking point, but her talent transcends it. She’s astonishing.” —Entertainment Weekly
 
“Seamless and full of small eleganl#A