![]() ![]() Despite their mothers’ cooing, little girls in tutus learn early that their hips are too wide, their thighs too fat, their tolerance for pain too low. The world of ballet, after all, is not a particularly funny one. So it takes a few measures to realize that her second novel, “Astonish Me,” performs a dramatic changement. Her take on a sniping corps of cutthroat ballerinas could be another bravura comedy. Shipstead can be fantastically witty about the anxieties and humiliations of middle age. ![]() I’ve been looking forward to it since I read her debut, “Seating Arrangements.” That button-down satire of the Martha’s Vineyard set was the smartest romantic comedy of 2012. As the son of a retired dance teacher and the husband of a former dancer and the father of a current dancer, I felt the beat of Maggie Shipstead’s new ballet novel even before the curtain rose. ![]()
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