The Dance of the Dolls

Starred review from July 3, 2023
Former ballerina Ashe’s insights into the world of professional dance elevate this unsettling debut thriller about identical twin sisters and the toxic male attention they attract. In prewar 1930s London, Olivia and Clara Marionetta are both dedicated to their budding ballet careers, though their goals are different. Studious Olivia wants to be a star ballerina, diligently saves her paltry salary for a rainy day, and prefers rest to late nights out. Clara, on the other hand, just wants to dance, spend money, and party. Clara is dating the bohemian Nathan, a former child prodigy who plays piano at the newly opened Sadler’s Wells Theater, where the sisters are rehearsing Coppélia, a ballet about a dancing doll that begins comically before taking a sinister turn. Shy Samuel, an apprentice ballet shoemaker, is infatuated with Olivia, but afraid to even talk to her, and expresses his love instead through a series of exquisite handmade slippers. As the sisters’ suitors start to treat them with more than innocent infatuation, their lives begin to imitate art a little too closely. Ashe’s persuasive behind-the-scenes ballet sections lend heft and authenticity to what could otherwise be mere window dressing, and she transitions her narrative from charming slice of historical fiction to pulse-pounding suspense at an expert pace. It’s a fiercely memorable debut from a writer to watch.