The Turnout
by Megan Abbott
Award: LA Times Winner 2022
Date Read: September 2, 2022
“Dara was dark, but Marie was light. Dara was cool, but Marie was hot.” This just goes to show how different these sisters are, from the very beginning of their lives, to the tragic house of cards that come tumbling down on their heads. While Dara does her best to forget all the terrible things that have happened in her life, – her parents violent marriage, her mother having sex with Charlie, her parents’ tragic car accident –Marie wants to face it all, even if it drives her crazy. And it just about does.
Charlie came to live with them as a teenager, the elder Mrs. Durant unwilling to let him go with his bio mother to England. Male dancers are very precious. Almost as soon as Charlie is ensconced in their lives, Dara and Charlie begin a relationship and are eventually married. Marie, for the most part, is single and has been for a very long time. They still live all together in the house until Marie decides one day that she’s had it. She moves into the ballet studio’s third floor, a forbidden room their mother never allowed them to enter.
Shortly thereafter, a fire rages through one of the dance studios, began by a faulty space heater and completely destroying one of their three studios at the most inopportune time. The Durant School of Dance is preparing for their Nutcracker extravaganza, but there is no time to lose. Charlie learns of a contractor and the rest piles up in a heap of a shitstorm.
Abbott is excellent at writing compelling thrillers. She somewhat reminds me of Gillian Flynn. Her prose is picturesque and her characters range from sinister and slimy to pure of heart and sympathetic. The Turnout also has hints of sexual abuse, incest and rough consensual sex, making the difference of each incredibly stark.
Men tend to be cast aside in the women’s world of dance. Mrs. Durant’s husband, the sisters’ father, never quite finds his place in the family. Charlie does find his place but he seems more like a lost puppy than husband material. The only other male is Derek, the contractor, who upsets their lives in just about every way. Perhaps the reason Dara and Marie respond so intensely to his presence is because they have never met a man like him.
Another fun page-turner from Abbott.
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