The Master's Muse

In his obituary of famous ballerina Tanaquil Le Clercq (known as Tanny), long-time dance critic Clive Barnes wrote: "The world of Balanchine ballets, like the world of Shakespearean comedy, [was] dominated by beautiful women. No one was more beautiful than Tanny."

The Master's Muse (Scribner; on-sale May 8, 2012; 978-1-4516-5538-4) is based on Tanny's true story. At the age of twenty-three, she became the principal dancer of New York City Ballet and married the company's artistic director, George Balanchine. Four years later, while performing in Europe, Tanny contracted Polio and soon learned she would never walk again.

Thus begins Varley O'Connor's beautifully told, extraordinary novel. O'Connor perfectly captures Tanny's vibrant, witty voice, and takes us inside a difficult marriage, in which Tanny is not the only "beautiful woman" and must eventually come to terms with the heart-wrenching loss of her art. Like Paula McClain's hugely successful The Paris Wife and Nancy Horan's Loving Frank, The Master's Muse imagines the life of a real woman married to a difficult, yet charismatic and influential man: in this case, George Balanchine, the legendary choreographer responsible for bringing ballet to America.

Populated by complex, fascinating characters (Jerome Robbins, Suzanne Ferrell, and Lincoln Kirsten all make appearances) and set in New York spanning the latter decades of the 20th Century, The Master's Muse is an evocative, compelling portrayal of the world of ballet and the people who devote their lives to it. Most of all, it is an exquisite love story about the deeply passionate marriage between two artistic legends.

The Master's Muse is everything good fiction should be. I hope you'll consider it for your May coverage.

Varley O'Connor is the author of three novels. She teaches fiction and creative nonfiction writing at Kent State University and for the Northeast Ohio Universities Consortium MFA program.