What Disappears

Listed in the Dance category on Art In Fiction, What Disappears (2022) by Barbara Quick is a gripping multi-generational tale that spans 1880s Tsarist Russia to Paris at the start of World War I. Jeannette Dupres, one of two identical twins born to a Jewish family in dire financial straits, is spirited out of an orphanage as an infant by a couple from France. Her twin, Sonya Luria, raised to believe her sister died at birth, has her life upended by the 1903 pogrom in Kishinev. The sisters are reunited in the doorway of Anna Pavlova's dressing room, when they both get jobs in Paris with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Sonya as a seamstress and Jeannette as an extra ballerina. In a relationship that ebbs and flows as it evolves, the twins' deepest, darkest secrets are revealed, not only affecting them but also leaving their mark on the lives and fates of Sonya's three daughters. "… Barbara Quick spreads before the reader a banquet of secrets, jealousy, betrayal, genius, high fashion, loss, tragedy and poignant regrets peppered with fascinating historical details and cameo appearances by some of the most famous ballerinas, writers, and artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. " —Mary Mackey, author of A Grand Passion Novelist and widely anthologized poet Barbara Quick has a worldwide readership. Her 2007 novel from HarperCollins,  Vivaldi's Virgins , was published in a dozen languages, made into an audiobook, and optioned for a mini-series. Her debut novel,  Northern Edge , won the Discover: Great New Writers Prize. Her poetry chapbook, T he Light on Sifnos , was awarded the 2020 Blue Light Press Poetry Prize. She lives with her husband on a farm and vineyard in Northern California.   Buy Now from Amazon Buy Now from Bookshop Find more novels by Barbara Quick on Art In Fiction. Listen to The Art In Fiction Podcast episode featuring Barbara Quick. What Disappears explores the ways in which girls and women define their identity and search for meaning in a world that tries at every turn to hold them back.