Megan Abbott is the award-winning author of ten novels, including Give Me Your Hand, You Will Know Me and Dare Me. She received her PhD in literature from New York University. And she’s also know for work in television, as co-creator of the USA adaptation of her novel Dare Me and and she’s currently at work adapting her new novel, The Turnout as a limited TV series for eOne.
The Turnout is tense, yet mesmerizing novel, set in the world of a ballet school--Dara and Marie Durant have been dancers since birth. Growing up, they were homeschooled and trained by their glamorous mother, founder of the Durant School of Dance. After their parents’ death the sisters began running the school together, along with Charlie, Dara’s husband and once their mother’s prized student. Marie, warm and soft, teaches the younger students; Dara, with her precision, trains the older ones; and Charlie, back broken after years of injuries, rules over the back office. Circling around each other, the three have perfected a dance that keeps the studio thriving.
But everything changes when a suspicious fire damages the studio just at the onset of the school’s annual performance of The Nutcracker. Already a season filled with competition, anxiety, and exhilaration, they hire a contractor to renovate the space in time for the performance. Quickly, this charismatic man infiltrates their lives and threatens the tight bonds of the family--upsetting the delicate balance and only world they’ve ever known.
