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A once-famous ballerina faces a final choice—to return to the world of Russian dance that nearly broke her, or to walk away forever—in this incandescent novel of redemption and love.
On a White Night in 2019, prima ballerina Natalia Leonova returns to St. Petersburg two years after a devastating accident that stalled her career. Once the most celebrated dancer of her generation, she now turns to pills and alcohol to numb the pain of her past.
She is unmoored in her old city as the ghosts of her former life begin to resurface: her loving but difficult mother, her absentee father, and the two gifted dancers who led to her downfall.
One of those dancers, Alexander, is the love of her life, who transformed both Natalia and her art. The other is Dmitri, a dark and treacherous genius. When the latter offers her a chance to return to the stage in her signature role, Natalia must decide whether she can again face the people responsible for both her soaring highs and darkest hours.
Painting a vivid portrait of the Russian ballet world, where cutthroat ambition, ever-shifting politics, and sublime artistry collide, City of Night Birds unveils the making of a dancer with both profound intimacy and breathtaking scope. Mysterious and alluring, passionate and virtuosic, Juhea Kim's second novel is an affecting meditation on love, forgiveness, and the making of an artist in a turbulent world.
Overture
Call me a sinner,
Mock me maliciously:
I was your insomnia,
I was your grief.
—ANNA AKHMATOVA, "I HAVEN'T COVERED THE LITTLE WINDOW" (1916)
And it seemed to me those fires
Were about me till dawn.
And I never learnt—
The colour of those eyes.
Everything was trembling, singing;
Were you my friend or enemy,
And winter was it, or summer?
—ANNA AKHMATOVA, "FRAGMENT" (1959)
I FILL MY CUP WITH VODKA. IT TASTES OF THE STRANGE LONGING PECULIAR to flying into one's old city at midnight.
Outside the rounded window of the plane, the lights of St. Petersburg glimmer through the clouds. I remember then that it is the White Nights. Descending from the gray heights, the earth looks more like the night sky than the sky itself, and I have the brief sensation of falling toward a star field. I close my eyes, breathe, and reopen them slowly. The city is utterly familiar and unknown at the same time, like the face of someone you used to love.
Say you run into this person by chance, at a park or on the lobby staircase between the orchestra and the parterre, with a glass of champagne you bought in a hurry during intermission. You're going up; your lover is going
Outside the rounded window of the plane, the lights of St. Petersburg glimmer through the clouds. I remember then that it is the White Nights. Descending from the gray heights, the earth looks more like the night sky than the sky itself, and I have the brief sensation of falling toward a star field. I close my eyes, breathe, and reopen them slowly. The city is utterly familiar and unknown at the same time, like the face of someone you used to love.
Say you run into this person by chance, at a park or on the lobby staircase between the orchestra and the parterre, with a glass of champagne you bought in a hurry during intermission. You're going up; your lover is going down. You recognize him not by his features, which have changed, but by his expression. You're splintered by doubt that this couldn't be him, yet in the next moment you accept that this could be no one else. You take measure of his body, while wondering how you look—your makeup, hair, heavy rings and earrings that you remembered at the last minute of getting dressed, and for which you're now grateful. You still haven't made up your mind whether to meet his eyes, to be coldly indifferent, to smile, or to say something, when you pass by each other on the worn marble staircase and the bell rings to announce the end of intermission. It's already over in less time than it takes for the champagne to lose its effervescence.
"Your seat belt."
A flight attendant stands in the aisle and glares at me until I buckle up, gather the empty mini bottles of vodka, and drop them into her plastic bag. Earlier, one of the other attendants had asked for my autograph, and I'd declined. "You're really not Natalia Leonova?" She'd questioned once more before going back to the clutch of her colleagues standing near the kitchen area. After that, all the attendants pointedly ignored me, as if slighting one of them meant slighting the entire crew. I close my eyes to their sidelong glances and see the faces of those I left in this city.
When the plane lands, my reveries cease. All I can think of is hiding where no one—other than myself—thinks I'm a horrible person.
I check into the Grand Korsakov, my usual hotel off Nevsky Prospekt. Although the view from the balcony is the best in Piter, I pull my curtains shut against the White Night. On the coffee table, there is a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, a vase filled with twenty-five cream-colored roses, and a card that says, WELCOME BACK, MLLE NATALIA. For a brief moment I wonder about the sender, but the hotel logo on the card lets me know the manager, Igor Petrenko, must have been more than usually excited to see my name in the reservations. ...
Excerpted from City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim. Copyright © 2024 by Juhea Kim. Excerpted by permission of Ecco. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Ecco. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.
City of Night Birds opens in the present day with a flight to St. Petersburg—a homecoming for world-famous ballerina Natalia (also called Natasha) Leonova. Ever since an accident stalled her career two years previously, the once preternaturally talented and ambitious Natalia now spends her time numbing her pain with pills and alcohol, imagining that her days of dancing are behind her. When she lands in her old hometown, however, she receives an invitation to return to the stage as Giselle, her signature role—an offer so tempting that she accepts despite the fact that it comes from Dmitri, a peer she has cause to be wary of.
As Natalia slowly reenters the cutthroat world of Russian ballet, the narrative stretches back to her childhood and complicated upbringing. Abandoned by her father as a baby and raised by an emotionally distant mother, young Natalia develops her thirst for ballet organically from dancing in her living room in their small one-bedroom apartment. After begging her mom to allow her to audition for a spot at Vaganova, a prestigious classical ballet school, Natalia is not only accepted, but soon finds herself at the top of her class, competing against peers who have been immersed in the world of ballet since birth.
As we follow Natalia through her schooling and her professional career, we meet the people who have, along with her art, shaped Natalia's character. There's Seryozha, Natalia's neighbor and first friend, a handsome and talented boy who Natalia fears is ashamed of their impoverished upbringing. There's the kind-hearted Nina, Natalia's closest friend, whom she has spent years avoiding after a falling-out. And there are the two men that most capture Natalia's heart and ultimately break her spirit: golden boy Sasha and cold, cruel Dmitri.
With a novel that feels raw and intimate and lived in, Juhea Kim captures the ruthless world of Russian ballet, where dancers are governed by artistry and precision. As Natalia continues to excel professionally, first at the renowned Mariinsky Ballet company and then the equally celebrated Bolshoi, the sacrifices she makes to maintain her position at the top begin to accumulate, but she never allows herself to be anything but the very best. Inhabiting the psyche of someone so disciplined and driven to perfection is a fascinating exercise, one that Juhea Kim explores expertly throughout the novel, taking the reader on a whirlwind journey through the competitive dance scene.
City of Night Birds is at its best when its focus is on Natalia's craft and how her dedication affects both herself and those around her. Natalia reflects often on what's required of her to remain the best in her field: "In ballet, the boundary between you and the character blurs until you're not even sure what's real and what's pretend. Indeed, art of any kind isn't possible without its creator believing that it's truer than reality. That's the difference between art and something merely beautiful." Examining the fragile balance between art and life is perhaps this novel's greatest strength. It's weaker when it chronicles Natalia's relationship with the men in her life—her relationship with Sasha, in particular, is rather one-note, and it's unfortunate that it comprises such a large portion of the book. Still, City of Night Birds is a worthwhile exploration of artistry, discipline, selfhood, and a determination to defy one's physical limitations.
Reviewed by Rachel Hullett
Jason Mott, National Book Award-winning author of Hell of a Book
Meng Jin, author of Self-Portrait with Ghost and Little Gods
Rachel Lyon, author of Fruit of the Dead and Self-Portrait with Boy
City of Night Birds centers on a performance of Giselle, which a world-famous ballerina is going to perform as her first foray back to the stage after a forced hiatus. Giselle is a romantic ballet in two acts that tells the story of a German peasant girl from the countryside. Giselle falls in love with a nobleman, Albrecht, who has disguised himself as the peasant Loys. The first act chronicles the courtship between Giselle and Loys, as the jealous woodsman Hilarion, himself in love with Giselle, sets out to prove Loys's deception. Hilarion eventually uncovers that not only is Loys really Albrecht, he is also already engaged to Bathilde, a friend of Giselle. Heartbroken, Giselle stabs herself with Albrecht's sword and dies.
The ballet's second act opens in a forest near Giselle's grave. The Wilis enter the stage—these are the spirits of young women who died before their wedding day, eternally forced to spend every night dancing. Myrtha, the queen of the Wilis, summons them to attend the ceremony that will initiate Giselle into their ranks. They are interrupted by Albrecht, who, filled with remorse, has come to weep at Giselle's grave. Myrtha commands Albrecht to dance to his death, but he is rescued by Giselle, whose forgiveness breaks her from the curse of joining the Wilis. She returns to rest peacefully in her grave, and Albrecht is left to mourn her.
Giselle was composed in the mid-1800s in France. Librettists Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Theophile Gautier were inspired by a prose passage from Heinrich Heine's On Germany, discussing the myth of the Wilis, and by a poem by Victor Hugo, Fantômes, about a young girl who danced herself to death. Giselle was first performed at the Salle Le Peletier in Paris on June 28, 1841, with Italian dancer Carlotta Grisi performing the role of Giselle and French dancer Lucien Petipa as Albrecht. With music composed by Adolphe Adam and original choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot, Giselle was an instant success, and was soon staged across Europe, the United States, and Russia. The choreography we are most familiar with today was a variation developed by Marius Petipa (brother of Lucien) during the late nineteenth century at the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg.
Composed during classical ballet's Romantic Era, Giselle contains many hallmarks of this style: a focus on the lives of country folk, an interest in the supernatural, and an inevitably tragic ending. Another common feature of romantic ballets were scenes in which performers would all wear white—called a "ballet blanc"—which Giselle employs in its scenes with the Wilis. Its focus on female performers was also characteristic of ballets developed during this period.
Still widely popular today, Giselle is known both for its tragic romance and for being one of the most challenging ballets to dance. In particular, the dancer who plays the titular role has to complete a number of difficult steps and also embody a supernatural force in the second act.
Portrait of Carlotta Grisi as Giselle (1844-45), engraving by H. Robinson after a painting by A.E. Chalon, courtesy of The New York Public Library
Filed under Music and the Arts
A novel about obsessive love featuring two ballet dancers—identical twin sisters Olivia and Clara Marionetta—with a terrifying climax set in the world of ballet in pre-war London.
A provocative and lyrical debut novel follows a trailblazing Black ballerina who must reconcile the ever-rising stakes of her grueling career with difficult questions of love, loss, and her journey to self-liberation, from a sensuous new voice in fiction.
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