Dancing for Degas A Novel

by Wagner, Kathryn

• ISBN13: 9780385343862
• ISBN10: 0385343868
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-03-16
• Publisher: Bantam

Summary

With this fresh and vibrantly imagined portrait of the Impressionist artist Edgar Degas, readers are transported to Paris as a young Parisian ballerina tells a story of great love, great art--and the most painful choices of the heart.

Author Biography

Kathryn Wagner is a senior fundraiser for a child advocacy nonprofit in Washington, D.C. She holds a B.A. in journalism with a minor in art and has worked as a staff writer and columnist for several newspapers in North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Virginia. Imagining what has inspired great artists has been a longtime passion of hers. She is currently at work on her next novel.

Excerpts

No. 1 Scène: The Fiery Side of France

1859

I wasn’t always filled with such anxiety. The inescapable need for perfection was cultivated during many years of training—just as my body was strengthened to complete a flawless pirouette, my mind underwent vigorous instruction until I believed that I was better than all others and entitled to nothing short of the riches of an empress. Yet it was no secret that I could be dethroned without a second thought. My success was nothing but an illusion, which I find especially ironic because I was not born into such complications. I sought them out.

At the age of twelve, when all the girls around me seemed to be blossoming, I was painfully average. Others received praise for their looks and talents, while I faded into the background. Once in a while someone would compliment my startling green eyes, but this only happened when there was no one else in the vicinity and nothing else to focus on. And, believe me, one had to put quite a bit of focus into the task of taking notice. They had to overlook my gangly, awkward body, my clothes that always seemed to attract dirt, my drab, brown hair that always managed to become unruly. It was a wonder to me how other girls seemed to not have to give their hair a second thought. I couldn’t stop staring at the locks that cascaded over their shoulders in one fluid motion like corn silk. My wavy hair seemed to feed off of hairbrushes, growing larger and larger with each stroke. Like a horse running wild, I could not control it so I chose instead to suppress it under limp bonnets.

My hair was only the start of my ordinary existence. I grew taller than most girls my age, but not so tall that I drew attention, only tall enough to look clumsy by comparison. I loathed running into the Neville family at the market. Madame Neville had given birth to a staggering number of children, ten the last time I counted and all girls, all names beginning with N—Nathalie, Nicole, Naomi, and so on. I was sure they would run out of N names if she didn’t stop having children. The Neville girls were tiny, so tiny that they drew crowds as they followed behind their mother like a row of ducklings with shiny white heads of hair. I hated when my mother would stop to pay her respects to Madame Neville and I would find myself stuck in the middle of the group, my head rising above the girls like a large, scruffy dog amongst a litter of kittens. The only company I kept was my mother’s, with just one brother who mimicked my father’s apathy toward me as if neither could be bothered with the trivial thoughts of a girl, and thus I really had no idea how to talk to children my own age. When passersby would stop and coo that the Neville girls looked just like a group of porcelain dolls, my face would grow red and I would stare down at my shoes. I remember peering over at Madame Neville, who basked in the glow of the compliments, a baby thrust onto her hip, and noticing how her body resembled a pyramid, becoming wider and wider until her bottom sagged down so low that it seemed it would surely touch the ground. I thought with some satisfaction that these tiny girls would grow to be only as tall as their mother. They wouldn’t be able to grow higher, so they would grow wider until each of the little dolls resembled walking pyramids as well.

While I was much too shy and proper to have said such a terrible thing aloud, I did constantly think terrible thoughts of others. Perhaps it was from being overlooked so often; I had nothing else to do but observe those around me and find faults to rival the compliments they were given. If a girl received praise for her exquisite needlework while I tried to hide the knots that formed in mine, I would shrug my shoulders and console myself with the thought that of course her needlework was perfect, she had such large bug eyes that the tiny stitches must surely be ma

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Excerpted from Dancing for Degas: A Novel by Kathryn Wagner
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