About the Book
'A luminous chronicle of betrayal, sacrifice and ambition' The Observer
'My idea of a perfect book ... I cannot recommend it enough.' Jami Attenberg
'In this finger-trap puzzle of a plot, the pull of the past meets the pressures of the present' New York Times
Carlisle Martin dreams of becoming a professional ballet dancer like her mother Isabel. She only gets to see her father Robert, and his brilliant but troubled partner James, for a few precious weeks a year when she visits their enchanted apartment in Greenwich Village. James educates her in all that he holds dear in life: literature, music, and most of all, dance. As the years go by, Carlisle is desperate to be asked to stay permanently, even as AIDS brings devastation to their community. Instead, a passionate love affair creates a rift between them, with devastating consequences that reverberate for decades to come. Nineteen years later, Carlisle receives a phone call which unravels the fateful events of her life . . .
They're Going to Love You is a gripping and gorgeously written novel of heartbreaking intensity. With psychological precision and a masterfully revealed secret at its heart, it asks what it takes to be an artist, and the price of forgiveness, of ambition, and of love.
'Feels like a commercial success in the waiting' The Times
'A deeply felt (late) coming of age tale about purpose and love' i
'A truly beautiful novel' Saga
'An elegant assemblée' Vanity Fair
'A taut, moving evocation of the love and hurt contained within families and the difficulty of forgiveness.' Mail on Sunday
About the Author :
Meg Howrey is the author of the novels THE WANDERERS, THE CRANES DANCE, and BLIND SIGHT. Her non-fiction has appeared in Vogue and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Meg was a professional dancer who performed with the Joffrey Ballet and City Ballet of Los Angeles, among others. She made her theatrical debut in James Lapine's TWELVE DREAMS at Lincoln Center, and received the 2001 Ovation Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for her role in the Broadway National Tour of CONTACT. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
Review :
“Howrey’s prose invites readers to feel the emotion of each dance, beautifully translating physical and visual art onto the page. [Her] incisive character studies create a heart-wrenching story of love and loss.”
“A poignant family story of alienation, regret, and desire. Howrey expertly builds tension, leading the reader to feel alongside Carlisle both the draw of ballet and her anxiety about her reunion with her father. It’s a breathtaking performance.”
Howrey takes the purity of expression in dance and imbues it with all the messy subtleties of great writing to create something new and exquisite. An elegant and deeply affecting tale.
As elegant, refined and layered as the best of ballets, this novel is a luminous, immersive reading experience. I was fully transported into a world of beauty, rigour, aesthetic and personal challenges. Compelling and captivating, I was unable to put it down.
“Howrey goes back and forth between Carlisle’s present and her past…landing, like a flawless jeté, on the side of pitch-perfect poignancy. Howrey, a former dancer who joined the Joffrey Ballet when she was just a teenager, writes as movingly about the world of dance as any living author. Even better is her incisive and effortless writing about relationships—between parent and child, between queer lovers—in all their complex mess and beauty. ‘Agony is ordinary,’ thinks Carlisle—this novel is anything but.”
Swift and sinewy and intense—like the ballet dancers who populate it. It’s about vocation, longing, and complicated family love, and it’s guaranteed to make you weep.
‘Howrey deftly jumps through decades and lives to write a taut, moving evocation of the love and hurt contained within families and the difficulty of forgiveness.’
“A gripping, deftly constructed drama.”
“They’re Going to Love You is my idea of a perfect book. It is about art, life, death, love, and family and it is beautifully and sharply written. I cried several times while reading it, and was sorry to let it go when I was done. I cannot recommend it enough.”
“A stirring coming-of-age tale. Howrey’s writing is precise and eloquent, like finely tuned ballet, but above all, this soul-stirring novel is about love, loyalty and one’s lifelong relationship to art.”
“Rooted in authenticity, nuance, and honesty…. By addressing issues like lack of recognition and pay for choreographers, the lack of female choreographers in ballet, and ballet’s body biases, Howrey not only weaves a poignant story, she makes a statement about the way things are and the ways things need to change.”
“Reading this potent novel, I kept thinking of the Elvis Costello quote: ‘Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.’ In much the same way, dramatizing the dance world is no easy feat, and Meg Howrey has stuck the landing. They’re Going to Love You is a portrait of passion and beauty at its most electric and unflinching. You’re going to love this book.”
“They’re Going to Love You is a deeply beautiful book. A lot of writers dream of achieving something like this novel, where art and life and love all seem to be addressed in a way we haven’t read before. It acknowledges its forebears (Portrait of a Lady, for example) with a cultured lightness of touch and with a confidence to converse with novelists (and dancers) that have come before. Writing about dance and making it feel present, alive, and important must be among the trickiest of writerly skills! Meg Howrey choreographs fragile wisdom, passing time, parents and children and lovers and regrets and ambition elegantly and movingly.”
"They’re Going to Love You is a devastating and revealing look behind the scenes at the true cost of art—creating it, quitting it, making a life of it. Howrey's moving, taut prose has captured the sacredness and profanity of ballet, family, and of life itself.
‘A luminous chronicle of betrayal, sacrifice and creative ambition’
“Muscular and graceful in equal measure, They’re Going to Love You, like the best fiction, contains everything on every page—a new story, constantly surprising, that in its specificity touches the universal line by line. Howrey’s writing is remarkable, and this novel is a soaring achievement and a total success.”
“As elegant, refined and layered as the best of ballets, this novel is a luminous, immersive reading experience. I was fully transported into a world of beauty, rigour, aesthetic and personal challenges. Compelling and captivating, I was unable to put it down.”
“I adored They’re Going to Love You so much that a part of me is convinced that Meg Howrey wrote it for me, specifically. This is such a gorgeous novel about being an artist in the modern world, the sacrifices we make and the people we hurt. When I hit the last page, I didn’t want to let these characters go—I adored every word.”
‘Filled with painful and astute self-reflections … Howrey is also often very funny … deeply felt (late) coming-of-age tale about purpose and love’
