Review: 'They're Going to Love You' by Meg Howrey

Meg Howrey's latest novel benefits greatly from the way dance instruction can apply to the text, simultaneously, as metaphor. The narrator, 43-year-old Carlisle Martin, is a dancer, choreographer, and child of dancers; the presence of careful movement, of exquisitely considered gesture, adds a layer of tension to every page. When Carlisle learns that her father, Robert, is dying, she leaves her home in Los Angeles and goes to New York to see him, after a 19-year absence that she is slow to explain.

The slow pace of this revelation — hinting and alluding at the fallout between Carlisle and her father, but backing away from a clear explanation — mirrors the way Carlisle feels about the matter. She drafts versions of her own story, fluctuating between anger and tenderness. She recalls that 1987, when she was 14, was "the summer of James," in a tone that contains both wistfulness and a warning, a tone at which Howrey excels.

James is well-drawn, trapped in an eternal state of wistfulness; he is sophisticated, loquacious, charming, didactic. Carlisle's admiration of him is unwavering, and her affection for him overshadows that for either of her parents. When James develops an attachment to one of his dance students, Alex, it causes a rift between him and Robert.

James asks Carlisle, then in her 20s, for help, sending her to Mexico with a gift for Alex. Carlisle, in turn, begins an affair with Alex, during which time James attempts suicide. He survives, but the question of who is at fault for this near-tragedy is enough to excise Carlisle, rather untidily, from her father and James' life.

Carlisle's voice is ruminative and repetitive; often, the questions she asks herself reflect questions the reader may have. Howrey's prose is sharp and clear when dance is the subject. "Dancing on pointe weaponizes ballet. ... We get taller, and our turns gain speed. Everything becomes more dangerous and more direct, literally more pointed. Our legs become swords."

Dance affords a certain kind of ecstatic power, but it is more than that; to be a dancer, this novel suggests, is to be vulnerable to pronounced physicality. "The past gets caught in the lungs, the joints, the interstitial tissues of our bodies," Howrey writes.

Despite her talent and power, and her balletic aptitude, Carlisle's concerns translate to any form of ambition and uncertainty. "This is my inheritance," Carlisle says. "To know the precise distance between oneself and greatness."

The love affairs and familial estrangement are well-wrought and intriguing, but the finest aspect of this novel is the way Howrey captures the artistic process.

Jackie Thomas-Kennedy's writing has appeared in American Short Fiction, One Story, Electric Literature, Lenny Letter, Narrative, Harvard Review and elsewhere. She is a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

They're Going to Love You

By: Meg Howrey.

Publisher: Doubleday, 267 pages, $28.