White Swan, Black Swan

by Adrienne Sharp

The world's most famous choreographer becomes infatuated with a coltish young dancer who proves both siren and muse. A rising star plunges into an affair with a principal but finds that ecstasy on the stage can't be surpassed in the bed. A dying legend reflects on the evanescent beauty of a life of gesture, lost to everything but memory.

Each bittersweet story plants the reader amid a cast of dancers and choreographers who struggle—valiantly, playfully, fiercely—to find in the rigorous discipline and animating beauty of ballet a counterbalance to the chaos of unscripted life. Many of the tales dare to imagine the inner lives of the century's titans—Balanchine, Fonteyn and Nureyev—which rival in emotional complexity and pathos the classic dramas they enacted La Bayadere, Don Quixote, Swan Lake.

White Swan, Black Swan translates the pure and essential gestures of ballet into starkly elegant prose while showing the sweat and sex beneath the serene surface. Adrienne Sharp's debut is a bravura performance.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Literature

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Adrienne Sharp entered the world of ballet at age seven and trained at the prestigious Harkness Ballet in New York. She received her M.A. with honors from the Writing Seminars at the Johns Hopkins University and was awarded a Henry Hoyns Fellowship at the University of Virginia. She has been a fiction fellow at MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Squaw Valley Writer’s Conference. She is the author of "White Swan, Black Swan," "The Sleeping Beauty," "The True Memoirs of Little K," and the forthcoming "The Magnificent Esme Wells."

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF

I read the first 3 stories in this collection and decided I was not enjoying them. There didn’t seem to be much point to the stories and none of them really held my interest or made me feel anything. This may have been the result of reading this on the heels of a much better short story collection but this has been on my shelf, unread, for so long that I think it is time to let it go.

[Maggie Li · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book at Myopic in Chicago and it caught my attention because of the title, which is a nod to my favorite ballet Swan Lake. This is one of those books that you pick up strictly for the vibes only. Some of the stories were kinda boring, while others were fun to read. My favorite one was the one about Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. Only disclaimer for this book was that there are a lot references to ballet and famous dancers and choreographers so if you don't have the knowledge this may be hard to enjoy.

[Chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of stories about ambitious but mentally ill ballerinas doing a very bad job of coping with things going wrong? Absolutely shocking that I would find this amazing and deeply relatable

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of short stories that revolve around the ballet world, more specifically, many people that actually existed within the world of ballet. Reading some of the reviews, I'm not sure why anybody would go into this book thinking it had anything to do with the movie, Black Swan. I'm also not sure why they would be disappointed that it doesn't, when the description clearly states otherwise.

As for this book, I did enjoy it most of the time. Some of the stories felt like they relied on the reader knowing who some of the characters/people are, making them a bit hard to follow. The ones that were more fictionalized were probably the more entertaining ones, with a better flow and voice to them.

Some of the stories felt redundant, with similar plots. I would think that even if retelling the stories of people who actually existed, it would make more sense not to include more than one with nearly identical stories.

Overall, I didn't hate it, and I'd probably give it a 3.5 if I could, but because it was better than it was worse, I'm giving this book a 4.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every story contains the same plot: some ballerina gets stoned, hates ballet, fucks everyone they can, and then takes more drugs.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a big fan of Sharp’s novel First Love , I was pretty excited to finally sample more of her work. Like a lot of anthologies, some were stronger than others. Two or three were exceptionally good; most were middling; and two or three I DNF.

My biggest quibble is that there are characters that share names with the ones in First Love, but it’s unclear whether these are meant to be:

- the same characters from the novel just earlier or later in their lives
- rough drafts of the eventual novel characters
- completely unrelated, entirely coincidental characters

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was one of those books that I expected to be able to sit and read. I found that I had to put it down and give it some time between stories. I enjoyed some stories more than others, which I think is pretty typical of short story collections. The author is very clear that it includes people who actually lived or are living, but it is a fictional work. I felt that using people who are known in the dance world hurt the stories. There were times I felt I was expected to know who a person was to really get the story.

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could give this book 2 1/2 stars.

I love ballet and I love the real people, like Balanchine, featured in Adrienne Sharp's collection of short stories. That being said, I couldn't get into these stories. I truly enjoyed only two or three of them. Still, they are beautiful, if not a little odd.

[heather jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Group of short stories- Mostly Balanchine-centric!

[Zev · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was boring as shit. I read this as a teenager, so I knew it wasn't related to the movie. For those who want to read it: nothing to do with the excellent movie I've seen four times.

TW: substance abuse, eating disorders, domestic violence and cheating.

I was swept away by this as a teenager. I went through a huge phase then of reading books about ballet, alongside my lifelong horror and mystery interest. Over the years, I forgot about this book and the details blended with horror books I was reading at the same time. Two years ago, I wanted to read it again and was essentially asking about two different books. I picked the ballet one. It took -years- to find. When two goodreads administrators finally did, I was overjoyed. This is a short story anthology I remembered as a novel. No, back when I was a teenager, I read short story anthologies and poetry regularly. I've since shifted to predominantly stand-alone novels that are three hundred pages at most. Sometimes I read book series. So, this book. It's boring as shit. Yeah, there's a lot of substance abuse in it, but--boring. There's cheating and domestic violence, but the way the stories are written, readers could honestly miss that it occurred. Something I actually appreciated was how blandly eating disorders were treated--it helped the book seem more realistic, is why. I'm not advocating eating disorders. There's nothing new in each story, really. The characters all seem to have the same voice, despite being based off of real-life famous people. They all seem to have the same experiences with little variation. The stories are largely narrative passages and characters thinking a lot. They perceive the world around them languidly. I'm glad the book was split up into different sections clearly, because otherwise I would have thought it would never end. The author was a professional in the industry, and I am glad she wrote this. It just--didn't move me in the ways I was seriously hoping.

[Trisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just wasn’t a fan of this novel. It was a collection of short stories that revolves around the ballet world, and I was hoping for drama.....passion.....intensity.....but instead, it seemed like every story was about a ballet dancer with a substance abuse problem who was either taking a sabbatical or was getting older and was missing their days of dancing. The stories were about 10-15 pages long and I felt like, by the time I figured out who the characters were and what the plot line was even about, the story was over and it was on to the next. Sometimes characters were briefly mentioned in other stories, which only made it more confusing because I was trying to remember what their story had even been about. I was left feeling rather disappointed. I had actually wanted to read this novel after seeing the film with Natalie Portman. I thought the movie was fantastic, so I was excited when I saw the book and thought that it would be filled with similar stories. Unfortunately, the movie plot line wasn’t even in the book! Ugh!!

[Jaymee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I normally dislike reading short story collections, but this is an exception! It's loosely tied together, but the research and retelling of the stories of the ballet masters really got me. I felt that they were given justice by the author and I enjoyed seeing them from their own perspectives as they tell their stories. A 4.5 rounded to 5. One of the best fictional books about ballet, but which is sadly unknown. I can't even remember how I learned about this book, I just ordered it (thankfully).

[sierra · Rating 3 out of 5]

sex, drugs, rage, jealousy, privilege, death, injury, mania, failure. at times i was bored and wishing the story would end and sometimes to the opposite extreme; i loved the story and wished it could go on. each story somehow connects to the other, without blatantly exposing it, creating a complex relationship between characters and events. “I made the Royal Ballet royal. I was the season. I was the English dance.” Overall the book is filled with flaws creating it into art itself.

[Susan Risk · Rating 2 out of 5]

13 Short stories about dancers, ballet, their lifestyles, drug habits, sexual orientations, etc.. Some of the stories were OK but some were a little quirky and cryptic. I found her writing style to be un smooth. I felt as if I was constantly going back into the story to see what piece of information I missed. And then all of a sudden somewhere in the latter half or end of the story that piece of information was apparent.

[Kitty | MyCuriousReads · Rating 3 out of 5]

White. Swan, Black Swan by Adrienne Sharp, is a book of 13 short stories. Her unique style of writing and the worlds she pulled me into, were atmospheric in nature. The sensory details and character development made each story flow like a ribbon falling from sky, moving me from story to story.

I will say that because of my dance and classical music background, I was able to keep up with the terminology, however, because of that it may be hard to follow.

[Alison Irene ThePrairieDog · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5⭐️ I guess… because I didn’t haaaate it, but not going to round up like I normally would with a whatever.5⭐️ rating. I didn’t like it. The most boring of all the ballet related books I have read recently. Really wanted to DNF. It was a chore to get through and at some points I was just skimming frankly because I wanted it to be over with so badly.

[Liana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping for more of a Room of Mirrors fact based look into the real lives of storied dancers but for anyone in the ballet world, this was a good and interesting read. Not sure how non dancers would enjoy it though

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5- the stories set during the AIDS epidemic/the characters later affected by those characters in some way or another were definitely the best ones

[Rachel Swords · Rating 4 out of 5]

"White Swan, Black Swan" is a well-written collection of short stories about the vast world of ballet.As someone who took ballet lessons for sixteen years, I especially enjoyed how Ms. Sharp had her characters speak naturally in regard to the steps and ballets, instead of slowing the stories down by explaining what was what and the various ballet plots. Also, this collection is enjoyable in that you don't have to read the stories in order, though they each have a loose connection to each other. For example, the stories "Departure" and "In the Wake" feature a few of the same characters. Speaking of the characters, there is a mixture of original faces and familiar ones; for instance, the story "Don Quixote" highlights George Balanchine during her later years, while the piece "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is about the legendary Frederick Ashton. Ms. Sharp does a fantastic job of getting inside the minds of these geniuses and addressing 'what-ifs,' along with real life events. If you love reading about dance but don't want another dark and grim story, pick up this collection; if you're a budding writer who wants someone to emulate, pick up this collection; or, if you just love to read, pick up this collection. It's that good.

[Jennifer Bagazin · Rating 1 out of 5]

My attention was with this book for one fat month - and I didn't even finish it. The book was a bunch of stories about ballet and all things beautiful whatsoever. I didn't relate to any of it. I was never really interested in ballet. Why I bought this book was beyond me. At first I thought I could handle the boringness of it all or that maybe I would see the light after a few more pages or that the story of the Black Swan (as in the movie) would materialize in the plot in front of me and I'd get magically interested. Nope. Didn't happen. Alas I figured I couldn't go on reading this awful book anymore. I just didn't have that connection. This wasn't a successful read for me. :(

[April Lyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a quick read. I picked it up thinking it would be a quick, mindless romp and it was anything but. In fact, it's very hard to read in several sittings and would probably be a lot more gratifying if read all at once. There were definitely stories that I preferred to others; I've forgotten my favorites but did not like "A Short Season" at all. The final story is excellent - it ties many of the others together. There is a lot of spectacular writing and clever references all throughout the book but you have to read it with focus.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this selection of short stories, Sharp, a former member of the Harkness Ballet of New York, illuminates the dance world and the lives of dancers. She adroitly weaves together fictional characters and characters based on true-life artists (including Suzanne Farrell, Rudolf Nurevey, and Frederick Ashton) and makes palpable the emotional and physical demands of ballet. Sharp also happens to be a fantastic writer. This book is one of the best ballet themed works I've read.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so glad Jenna added this to her book list! I've met the author Sharp for an article I wrote about her second book, which is called First Love. Sharp paints a vivid and passionate picture of the world of ballet, taking actual dancers creating imaginary lives for Fonteyn, Nureyev and others. If you are a dance junky, you will love this book of short stories.

[Renée · Rating 4 out of 5]

This debut of stories does show the world of ballet authentically in its vignettes. Uneven, as many first books are, the better stories present the harsh realities of ballet against the beauty created on stage. Perhaps too much white swan and not enough black, its a refreshing portrait of the world of dance and dancers.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories which focus on the professional world of dance. Some of the stories are loosely based on real dancers lives, if you're familiar with the dance world you should be able to pick them out. I enjoyed some stories more than others as with most short story collections, overall it was an enjoyable and entertaining read.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories about ballet. Though I have seen and enjoy ballet, I admit I don’t know all that much about it. Even during my two years in art school I didn’t interact with the ballet dancers that much. Consequently, some of the names and characterizations are a little lost on me, but I did enjoy this nonetheless.

[Holly Colbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book fulfilled my guilty pleasure of all things ballet. However, with the mention of famous ballet dancers throughout, I could see where maybe people who did not grow up in the ballet world may not be as into it as I was. With the mention of Baryshnikov and Suzanne Farrell and Sylvie Guillem + others...it made for a great read.

[Meg · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book averages out as a two. Some of the stories I liked, or even really liked, but others were truly bad. The original stories were the best; I could do without the "fictionalized" accounts of famous dancers.

[Hillary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love a good ballet story, although Sharp's short stories have a definite sadness to them. She depicts the not-so-glamorous lifestyle of many dancers, but in a way that conveys both the sacrifices and the passion required in ballet.

[Gayla Bassham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, the curse of high expectations! I loved the movie Black Swan, and I had heard good things about Sharp's novel, so I anticipated that I would adore this book. No, alas, it didn't work for me. The characters felt flat, and the milieu wasn't as well realized as I thought it would be. Oh, well.