When ballet dancer Natalia Leonova returns to the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, she is no longer a determined corps member, yearning to make her mark and gain a more prominent role. She’s spent her years away soloing in every major production and traveling across the globe, accumulating the accolades of a renowned prima ballerina. Yet, in a startling turn of events, Natalia is back to take beginner lessons with the teachers of her youth. Everything has changed after her accident.
City of Night Birds is a deeply emotional portrayal of a dancer past the peak of her abilities, trying desperately to regain her sense of self after her body, her loved ones and her life’s work have let her down. Natalia’s story is told in a fluid dual narrative, with half the novel spent following the path of the ballerina’s decades-long career and the other half tracking Natalia’s present-day classes and rehearsals. In both narratives, City of Night Birds is utterly immersive. Author Juhea Kim describes ballet technique, culture and history in such a vivid way that they will quickly become meaningful to an unfamiliar reader, and landscapes of St. Petersburg, Moscow and Paris are sketched with the same palpability. Kim’s skill allows her to carry off this ambitious premise while still giving the novel the comfortable feel of a rainy day read .
As Natalia joins new dance companies, falls in and out of love and finds her place in the intense world of Russian ballet, the art form is the constant by which all else is measured—a medium used to illustrate the complicated relationships Natalia has with her mother, dear friends and long-term rivals. While developed to a lesser extent, the supporting characters inform Kim’s portrayal of her protagonist, adding depth and nuance to Natalia’s remarkable defiance and resilience.
For anyone who has ever been transfixed by the stage, City of Night Birds is not one to miss. The novel reverently celebrates dance, firmly declaring the sanctity of each performance while shedding a necessary light on the acute human costs.
