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Isadora
A 2017 NPR Great Read
Using the scaffolding of Isadora Duncan’s life and the stuff of her spirit, Amelia Gray’s breakout novel delivers an incredibly imaginative portrait of the artist, resulting in “a stunning meditation on art and grief by one of America’s most exciting young authors” (NPR). As dynamic, enthralling, and powerful as the visionary artist it captures, Amelia Gray’s Isadora is a relentless and living portrayal of a woman who shattered convention, even in the darkest days of her life. In 1913, Isadora Duncan was known as much for her stunning dance performances as for her eccentric and salacious personal life ― her lovers included poets, directors, and the heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune. But when her two children drowned in Paris, she found herself taking on a role she had never dreamed of. The tragedy brought the gossips out in full force, and the grieving mother wanted nothing more than to escape it all. Fleeing the very life she had worked so hard to build, she left her sister, Elizabeth, holding the reins of the artistic empire along with Elizabeth’s lover, Max, who had his own ideas for greatness. For two years Isadora cast about prewar Europe, living on credit on islands in Greece and in shuttered beachfront dwellings in Italy. She lashed out at her dearest lovers and friends, the very people who held her up. But life had cracked her spirit in on one side, the brilliant young talent who captivated audiences the world over; on the other, a heartbroken mother spinning dangerously on the edge of sanity.
Using the scaffolding of Isadora Duncan’s life and the stuff of her spirit, Amelia Gray’s breakout novel delivers an incredibly imaginative portrait of the artist, resulting in “a stunning meditation on art and grief by one of America’s most exciting young authors” (NPR). As dynamic, enthralling, and powerful as the visionary artist it captures, Amelia Gray’s Isadora is a relentless and living portrayal of a woman who shattered convention, even in the darkest days of her life. In 1913, Isadora Duncan was known as much for her stunning dance performances as for her eccentric and salacious personal life ― her lovers included poets, directors, and the heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune. But when her two children drowned in Paris, she found herself taking on a role she had never dreamed of. The tragedy brought the gossips out in full force, and the grieving mother wanted nothing more than to escape it all. Fleeing the very life she had worked so hard to build, she left her sister, Elizabeth, holding the reins of the artistic empire along with Elizabeth’s lover, Max, who had his own ideas for greatness. For two years Isadora cast about prewar Europe, living on credit on islands in Greece and in shuttered beachfront dwellings in Italy. She lashed out at her dearest lovers and friends, the very people who held her up. But life had cracked her spirit in on one side, the brilliant young talent who captivated audiences the world over; on the other, a heartbroken mother spinning dangerously on the edge of sanity.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published May 23, 2017
103 people are currently reading
3623 people want to read
About the author
Amelia Gray
70 books738 followersAmelia Gray is a writer living in Los Angeles, CA. She is the author of five books, most recently ISADORA. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker and VICE.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews
May 19, 2020
Thoughts when almost 1/2 way through:
I don't see the purpose of writing a book that is as confusing as this. Characters are not properly introduced. One switches rapidly between different places and times. We are given a date and a place only to find out after a paragraph or two that we have switched to past events and the location has changed too! One minute we are in reality then switch to a dream and then a Greek myth. Metaphors and similes abound, but they confuse rather than enrich the writing. Wordy, disconnected and confusing.
This book is giving me trouble. To make some sense out of the jumble, I went to Wiki and there read about Isadora Duncan.
I continue. Well, at least I am getting some mental exercise.
****************
On completion:
The writing continues in the same fashion throughout the entire book.
The second half is easier because you know the characters and the different settings – London, Paris, Corfu and Darmstadt, Germany. This book covers only one year of Isadora Duncan’s life. One year that encompasses the tragic death of her first two children in an accident, the illness that follows, a and the start of the First World War. We follow her dancing and the involvement of her family in her career. We learn about family members and we learn about Isadora (1877-1927), but we merely skim the surface of who she was, what she did in her life and how she envisioned dance. There is nothing about her years in Russia or her early death.
I listened to the audiobook narrated by JenTullock. Sure, I did understand the words, but she reads too fast. By rating the narration with one star I hope somebody will take note that some listeners object to fast narrations. She dramatizes, which I also dislike. If lines are read clearly, I have enough imagination to interpret them myself.
This book is a job to get through and it gives too little.
I don't see the purpose of writing a book that is as confusing as this. Characters are not properly introduced. One switches rapidly between different places and times. We are given a date and a place only to find out after a paragraph or two that we have switched to past events and the location has changed too! One minute we are in reality then switch to a dream and then a Greek myth. Metaphors and similes abound, but they confuse rather than enrich the writing. Wordy, disconnected and confusing.
This book is giving me trouble. To make some sense out of the jumble, I went to Wiki and there read about Isadora Duncan.
I continue. Well, at least I am getting some mental exercise.
****************
On completion:
The writing continues in the same fashion throughout the entire book.
The second half is easier because you know the characters and the different settings – London, Paris, Corfu and Darmstadt, Germany. This book covers only one year of Isadora Duncan’s life. One year that encompasses the tragic death of her first two children in an accident, the illness that follows, a and the start of the First World War. We follow her dancing and the involvement of her family in her career. We learn about family members and we learn about Isadora (1877-1927), but we merely skim the surface of who she was, what she did in her life and how she envisioned dance. There is nothing about her years in Russia or her early death.
I listened to the audiobook narrated by JenTullock. Sure, I did understand the words, but she reads too fast. By rating the narration with one star I hope somebody will take note that some listeners object to fast narrations. She dramatizes, which I also dislike. If lines are read clearly, I have enough imagination to interpret them myself.
This book is a job to get through and it gives too little.
April 27, 2017
Pub. Date: May 23, 2017
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
In this unusual historical fiction, we meet Isadora Duncan (1878-1927). She was a controversial and successful American dancer who performed throughout Europe. Breaking with conventional ballet, she spearheaded a cutting-edge technique that accentuated a natural and free-flowing style over traditional inflexible ballet. Today she is known as the “Mother of Modern Dance.” The author, Amelia Gray, lets us know that in both Duncan’s professional and private lives, she disregarded convention. Her children were born out of wedlock by different men. On stage, she was barefoot wearing scarves inspired by Greek imagery that peeked at her breasts, which sometimes resulted in banned performances. She was the epitome of a bohemian. (Think of the artists Frida Kahlo). I was hoping Gray would focus her novel on the notorious dancer who lived and loved without boundaries. However, Gray did not. The novel only concentrates on the aftermath of her children’s death. In 1913 Paris, her children and their Nanny drowned when their runaway car went into the Seine.
When I began this book I wasn’t aware that the author’s formatting was different than any other historical fiction that I have read. Each chapter starts off with a concise heading that clarifies what we are about to read. Then after the heading, each chapter reads like a disturbing stream of consciousness narration. I confess I was often confused. Gray’s writing made me feel as if I were having a particularly intense bad dream. And I believe that was her goal. I have never read Gray’s short story, “Museum of the Weird” but I have the feeling that “weird” may be her style. Yet for myself, while reading “Isadora,” I often I felt as though I was perusing a poem that I couldn’t quite grasp. It left me feeling disappointed because the words sounded splendid, possibly brilliant, although I just didn’t get most of it. (Because of this, I now intend to watch the film “The Loves of Isadora” with Vanessa Redgrave playing Isadora). However, Gray did a great job in helping me understand that Duncan grieved as she lived, full of melodrama and spinning out of control (like the car that took her children’s lives), bordering on the edge of insanity. I will not tell you what she did with her children’s ashes.
In this story, there were narrators other than the protagonist. There were also observers written in the third person. (I think Junot Díaz is the master of this kind of hybrid style of writing). You will need to be on your toes to follow the quick changes. Still, Gray does manage to pull it off. One voice was her sister Elizabeth who had a leg limp not allowing her to dance. Instead, she ran the dancing schools her sister founded. Elizabeth was totally reliant on Isadora and loathed her for that reality. She appeared to be the level-headed sister until you catch on that her supposedly great loves were merely her friends, and the romances were actually all in her imagination. We also get a good glimpse on Duncan’s grief-induced turmoil in her letters to the father of one of her children. In these letters, Isadora’s sentences fringe on insanity. Paris Singer, the heir to the Singer sewing machine empire, was the father of her other child. Duncan was living with him at the time of the car accident. To hear it from Singer, he was the brains and she was the temperamental artist. Duncan would have disagreed, but it may have been true as he was influential in her many triumphs. These different viewpoints enhance the story of a dazzling self-destructive dancer who found fame on the brink of World War I. Shades of the coming war were only hinted at in this tale. The focus was all on Duncan’s anguish. Personally, I would have enjoyed reading about the historical moments that took place during her lifetime. As I mentioned, I honestly only comprehended sections of the book due to the dysphoria-like writing style, which I always have trouble understanding. But if you enjoy that genre, and you can handle absurdism in a historical fiction then this book is for you.
Find all my reviews at https://books6259.wordpress.com/
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
In this unusual historical fiction, we meet Isadora Duncan (1878-1927). She was a controversial and successful American dancer who performed throughout Europe. Breaking with conventional ballet, she spearheaded a cutting-edge technique that accentuated a natural and free-flowing style over traditional inflexible ballet. Today she is known as the “Mother of Modern Dance.” The author, Amelia Gray, lets us know that in both Duncan’s professional and private lives, she disregarded convention. Her children were born out of wedlock by different men. On stage, she was barefoot wearing scarves inspired by Greek imagery that peeked at her breasts, which sometimes resulted in banned performances. She was the epitome of a bohemian. (Think of the artists Frida Kahlo). I was hoping Gray would focus her novel on the notorious dancer who lived and loved without boundaries. However, Gray did not. The novel only concentrates on the aftermath of her children’s death. In 1913 Paris, her children and their Nanny drowned when their runaway car went into the Seine.
When I began this book I wasn’t aware that the author’s formatting was different than any other historical fiction that I have read. Each chapter starts off with a concise heading that clarifies what we are about to read. Then after the heading, each chapter reads like a disturbing stream of consciousness narration. I confess I was often confused. Gray’s writing made me feel as if I were having a particularly intense bad dream. And I believe that was her goal. I have never read Gray’s short story, “Museum of the Weird” but I have the feeling that “weird” may be her style. Yet for myself, while reading “Isadora,” I often I felt as though I was perusing a poem that I couldn’t quite grasp. It left me feeling disappointed because the words sounded splendid, possibly brilliant, although I just didn’t get most of it. (Because of this, I now intend to watch the film “The Loves of Isadora” with Vanessa Redgrave playing Isadora). However, Gray did a great job in helping me understand that Duncan grieved as she lived, full of melodrama and spinning out of control (like the car that took her children’s lives), bordering on the edge of insanity. I will not tell you what she did with her children’s ashes.
In this story, there were narrators other than the protagonist. There were also observers written in the third person. (I think Junot Díaz is the master of this kind of hybrid style of writing). You will need to be on your toes to follow the quick changes. Still, Gray does manage to pull it off. One voice was her sister Elizabeth who had a leg limp not allowing her to dance. Instead, she ran the dancing schools her sister founded. Elizabeth was totally reliant on Isadora and loathed her for that reality. She appeared to be the level-headed sister until you catch on that her supposedly great loves were merely her friends, and the romances were actually all in her imagination. We also get a good glimpse on Duncan’s grief-induced turmoil in her letters to the father of one of her children. In these letters, Isadora’s sentences fringe on insanity. Paris Singer, the heir to the Singer sewing machine empire, was the father of her other child. Duncan was living with him at the time of the car accident. To hear it from Singer, he was the brains and she was the temperamental artist. Duncan would have disagreed, but it may have been true as he was influential in her many triumphs. These different viewpoints enhance the story of a dazzling self-destructive dancer who found fame on the brink of World War I. Shades of the coming war were only hinted at in this tale. The focus was all on Duncan’s anguish. Personally, I would have enjoyed reading about the historical moments that took place during her lifetime. As I mentioned, I honestly only comprehended sections of the book due to the dysphoria-like writing style, which I always have trouble understanding. But if you enjoy that genre, and you can handle absurdism in a historical fiction then this book is for you.
Find all my reviews at https://books6259.wordpress.com/
February 1, 2018
This was poetry in novel form. Hands down the most well written book I’ve read.
May 13, 2018
There is no doubt the Amelia Gray can write. Both Threats and Gutshot were unique and fascinating. Isadora Duncan is an ideal and mysterious choice here for a protagonist. This book had it’s magic moments where the prose shined, but it was often tedious and slow-paced.
When all was said and done, this one fell a little flat.
When all was said and done, this one fell a little flat.
June 13, 2017
https://www.dallasnews.com/arts/books...
Why novelist Amelia Gray was drawn to 'an absolute, beat-of-her-own-drum kind of weirdo'
by Jenny Shank, Special Contributor
Dallas Morning News, June 9, 2017
Amelia Gray, at only 34, is an acclaimed writer of distilled, potent fiction, with three short-story collections and now two novels to her credit.
Her new novel, Isadora (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27), finds Gray stretching out her prose and lingering in the fascinating story of Isadora Duncan, a San Francisco-born dancer who rose to fame in the early 1900s for her naturalistic technique, inspired by Greek sculpture.
Duncan led a turbulent life, and Gray begins Duncan's story with its darkest hour: the moment in 1913 when Duncan's two children drown in the Seine in Paris when the car they were riding in lurched out of control. After the deaths of her children, Duncan stopped performing for some time and traveled. Through incisive and richly layered scenes, Gray explores this period in Duncan's life and the atmosphere in Europe just before the outbreak of the first World War.
Gray, who earned her MFA in creative writing at Texas State University-San Marcos, spoke over the phone from her home in Los Angeles before her appearance June 15 at The Wild Detectives in Dallas.
How did you first become interested in Isadora Duncan?
I was writing about "it girls" for a magazine article. I could pick any woman in history who went against convention. The more I learned about Isadora Duncan — as somebody who is not really knowledgeable in dance, and not that knowledgeable in pre-war Europe — I was surprised to find a strong interest in myself in her work and her life. She was a total character. She was an absolute, beat-of-her-own-drum kind of weirdo.
Isadora is the first book of historical fiction you've published. How did you confine your language to the time period Duncan lived in?
There were many instances of me using a word and then checking the etymology to make sure it existed.
Did that add an extra layer of difficulty to the writing?
Yes. I don't mind how Downton Abbey, for example, took some modern phrases and weaved them in. That show helped me become a little less stressed about etymology, although I did try to get everything right. The really challenging aspect was that the idea of the Freudian novel wasn't around yet. I thought it would be an interesting exercise to write a book that predated the idea of ego. Pre the idea of the parental influence or the Oedipus complex situation.
Those two theories could go to town with Duncan's life.
Hell yeah. The clearest interpretation would be that her mother, who lived this very wild life of her own, planted the seeds for Isadora. But I've always preferred narratives that have the character stand alone. I think it opened it up a bit, to be able to put aside the mom stuff and instead look at ideas of luck, God, or grief and not have it be so egocentric.
I did talk some about these ideas in terms of the Greeks. I wrote a little bit about Narcissus because everybody in the family reads to me as narcissistic types.
Was that how Isadora styled herself? She dressed in Greek robes.
She was obsessed with the Grecian ideal of beauty, which she saw as the true ideal. When she was a kid, she and one of her brothers would spend all day in art museums sketching the figures on Greek vases. She modeled a series of dances after these terra cotta Tanagra figures.
In Isadora, the process of pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, motherhood and loss influence Duncan's choreography. Did you base that on your research, or was that something you intuited?
Well, I think you're totally right. A lot of my research is taken from Isadora's autobiography, My Life, which is largely considered to be fictional. I wonder if having children was really her plan, or once it happened — because there was no way around it in 1908 — if then she made the "eternal mother" kind of her brand, to talk about it in an icky modern way.
Your character Isadora thinks, "The artist never knows what she requires until the moment she requires it." Does this apply to your own writing?
Yeah, a little bit. That's the fun and prizes of being an artist. I'm thinking of her as a character, too. I'm fascinated by little stories I read about her, where she would require that a different chair be brought into the restaurant so that she could properly recline. She has this kind of power over her life and her surroundings that was really inspiring to me.
What are you working on now?
I'm writing on a new TV show called Maniac for Netflix. It's a half-hour comedy, which I've always really wanted to do. It's an excellent day job, and it takes up a lot of my time and brainpower. I'm doing that for another couple of weeks. After that, I'd really like to go into the woods and come out with some crazed manuscript.
Amelia Gray will discuss Isadora at 7:30 p.m. June 15 at Wild Detectives, 314 West Eighth St., Dallas.
Jenny Shank's first novel, The Ringer, won the High Plains Book Award.v
Why novelist Amelia Gray was drawn to 'an absolute, beat-of-her-own-drum kind of weirdo'
by Jenny Shank, Special Contributor
Dallas Morning News, June 9, 2017
Amelia Gray, at only 34, is an acclaimed writer of distilled, potent fiction, with three short-story collections and now two novels to her credit.
Her new novel, Isadora (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27), finds Gray stretching out her prose and lingering in the fascinating story of Isadora Duncan, a San Francisco-born dancer who rose to fame in the early 1900s for her naturalistic technique, inspired by Greek sculpture.
Duncan led a turbulent life, and Gray begins Duncan's story with its darkest hour: the moment in 1913 when Duncan's two children drown in the Seine in Paris when the car they were riding in lurched out of control. After the deaths of her children, Duncan stopped performing for some time and traveled. Through incisive and richly layered scenes, Gray explores this period in Duncan's life and the atmosphere in Europe just before the outbreak of the first World War.
Gray, who earned her MFA in creative writing at Texas State University-San Marcos, spoke over the phone from her home in Los Angeles before her appearance June 15 at The Wild Detectives in Dallas.
How did you first become interested in Isadora Duncan?
I was writing about "it girls" for a magazine article. I could pick any woman in history who went against convention. The more I learned about Isadora Duncan — as somebody who is not really knowledgeable in dance, and not that knowledgeable in pre-war Europe — I was surprised to find a strong interest in myself in her work and her life. She was a total character. She was an absolute, beat-of-her-own-drum kind of weirdo.
Isadora is the first book of historical fiction you've published. How did you confine your language to the time period Duncan lived in?
There were many instances of me using a word and then checking the etymology to make sure it existed.
Did that add an extra layer of difficulty to the writing?
Yes. I don't mind how Downton Abbey, for example, took some modern phrases and weaved them in. That show helped me become a little less stressed about etymology, although I did try to get everything right. The really challenging aspect was that the idea of the Freudian novel wasn't around yet. I thought it would be an interesting exercise to write a book that predated the idea of ego. Pre the idea of the parental influence or the Oedipus complex situation.
Those two theories could go to town with Duncan's life.
Hell yeah. The clearest interpretation would be that her mother, who lived this very wild life of her own, planted the seeds for Isadora. But I've always preferred narratives that have the character stand alone. I think it opened it up a bit, to be able to put aside the mom stuff and instead look at ideas of luck, God, or grief and not have it be so egocentric.
I did talk some about these ideas in terms of the Greeks. I wrote a little bit about Narcissus because everybody in the family reads to me as narcissistic types.
Was that how Isadora styled herself? She dressed in Greek robes.
She was obsessed with the Grecian ideal of beauty, which she saw as the true ideal. When she was a kid, she and one of her brothers would spend all day in art museums sketching the figures on Greek vases. She modeled a series of dances after these terra cotta Tanagra figures.
In Isadora, the process of pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, motherhood and loss influence Duncan's choreography. Did you base that on your research, or was that something you intuited?
Well, I think you're totally right. A lot of my research is taken from Isadora's autobiography, My Life, which is largely considered to be fictional. I wonder if having children was really her plan, or once it happened — because there was no way around it in 1908 — if then she made the "eternal mother" kind of her brand, to talk about it in an icky modern way.
Your character Isadora thinks, "The artist never knows what she requires until the moment she requires it." Does this apply to your own writing?
Yeah, a little bit. That's the fun and prizes of being an artist. I'm thinking of her as a character, too. I'm fascinated by little stories I read about her, where she would require that a different chair be brought into the restaurant so that she could properly recline. She has this kind of power over her life and her surroundings that was really inspiring to me.
What are you working on now?
I'm writing on a new TV show called Maniac for Netflix. It's a half-hour comedy, which I've always really wanted to do. It's an excellent day job, and it takes up a lot of my time and brainpower. I'm doing that for another couple of weeks. After that, I'd really like to go into the woods and come out with some crazed manuscript.
Amelia Gray will discuss Isadora at 7:30 p.m. June 15 at Wild Detectives, 314 West Eighth St., Dallas.
Jenny Shank's first novel, The Ringer, won the High Plains Book Award.v
May 17, 2017
Absolute brilliance. Tops my list for 2017.
July 8, 2020
One of the best books of 2017.
Amelia Gray has built her literary reputation on endless inventiveness. Her stories are explorations of the weird, and her first novel, Threats, continued that tradition in long-form. So while Isadora is something of a departure from Gray's established style, it should in no way be surprising that she has found a new way to surprise readers.
The titular Isadora is Isaroda Duncan, the woman who pioneered modern dance in the early 20th century. The novel begins with the tragic death of her two young children. This event might have been the climax of the story in the hands of another author. As Gray's starting point, though, it initiates a series of character studies—of Isadora, her lover and father of one of the children, plus several others—a sort of downward spiral through grief, at least grief as experienced by the iconoclastic Duncan.
The novel rewards not through a rigid plot progression, but through a cumulative experience. The petty alongside the profound. Experience as synonymous with mess. I could call the novel existentialist, but that's not quite right. As always, Gray has created a work that's going to defy our easy classifications.
Throughout, I was struck by the depth of imagination behind the novel. These characters and their worlds are richly researched, yes, but it's the elements that Gray has created, if not from scratch then from only the barest of recipes, that linger with me even weeks and months after I finished reading.
Amelia Gray has built her literary reputation on endless inventiveness. Her stories are explorations of the weird, and her first novel, Threats, continued that tradition in long-form. So while Isadora is something of a departure from Gray's established style, it should in no way be surprising that she has found a new way to surprise readers.
The titular Isadora is Isaroda Duncan, the woman who pioneered modern dance in the early 20th century. The novel begins with the tragic death of her two young children. This event might have been the climax of the story in the hands of another author. As Gray's starting point, though, it initiates a series of character studies—of Isadora, her lover and father of one of the children, plus several others—a sort of downward spiral through grief, at least grief as experienced by the iconoclastic Duncan.
The novel rewards not through a rigid plot progression, but through a cumulative experience. The petty alongside the profound. Experience as synonymous with mess. I could call the novel existentialist, but that's not quite right. As always, Gray has created a work that's going to defy our easy classifications.
Throughout, I was struck by the depth of imagination behind the novel. These characters and their worlds are richly researched, yes, but it's the elements that Gray has created, if not from scratch then from only the barest of recipes, that linger with me even weeks and months after I finished reading.
December 16, 2017
I can certainly see why this was a pick on the Tour of Books. It is poetic, dark and...strange.
Based on some of the facts of Isadora Duncan's life, weaving the story in with Isadora's sister, Elizabeth, and their lovers. There is a lot to work with. I didn't know anything really about Isadora before I read this book, just an overall flavor of her reputation. She was somewhat of a despot. She kept people around her who support the vision she had of herself and because she was only concerned with herself and her art, she treated most of them horribly.
Gray imagines the loss of her children and her relationships along with her sister and their lovers, with dark, poetic language. A few of the passages are so beautiful and intense that it almost hurts, but the people are all broken and tragic.
It's a credit to Gray's talent that she can write so honestly and poetically with characters that are so complex that you can't stop reading even though they are bitter, selfish, myopic and certainly not completely sane. I felt sorry for Isadora, but in life, I think I would have hated her.
I loved the language and the brutal honesty, though it really made me dislike every single character. The way the story weaves in and out was a little confusing at times. I listened to it, so that may have something to do with it. The narrator was great. I love audiobooks and the narrator makes all the difference. Jen Tullock does a great job.
Based on some of the facts of Isadora Duncan's life, weaving the story in with Isadora's sister, Elizabeth, and their lovers. There is a lot to work with. I didn't know anything really about Isadora before I read this book, just an overall flavor of her reputation. She was somewhat of a despot. She kept people around her who support the vision she had of herself and because she was only concerned with herself and her art, she treated most of them horribly.
Gray imagines the loss of her children and her relationships along with her sister and their lovers, with dark, poetic language. A few of the passages are so beautiful and intense that it almost hurts, but the people are all broken and tragic.
It's a credit to Gray's talent that she can write so honestly and poetically with characters that are so complex that you can't stop reading even though they are bitter, selfish, myopic and certainly not completely sane. I felt sorry for Isadora, but in life, I think I would have hated her.
I loved the language and the brutal honesty, though it really made me dislike every single character. The way the story weaves in and out was a little confusing at times. I listened to it, so that may have something to do with it. The narrator was great. I love audiobooks and the narrator makes all the difference. Jen Tullock does a great job.
June 3, 2017
This is a captivating story with an intense amount of emotive force. The structure seems symphonic, moving and building in ways that at once satisfy different yet bound together narrative and expressive functions. It's impressive, and moving.
July 16, 2017
I am delighted to have finished Isadora byAmelia Gray which I have been mired in for some time now. The premise is interesting and the writer has moments of brilliance, but the excess of re-imagining Isadora Duncan's excessive life along with relatives and associates wore me.
Isadora Duncan sometimes believed to be the mother of modern dance has fascinated me since watching an episode about her on Death Valley Days aeons ago. Amelia Gray recreates her life after the tragic death of her two young children in 1913. At the time she was living with Paris Singer, the father of her younger child, Patrick. Paris is one of the many children of Isaac Singer the inventor of the Singer sewing machine.
Everything about Isadora is unusual as Gray oh so wittily details:
It was worse than a hotel, where at least the things were cared for and a pleasant anonymity greeted him each morning. In a hotel, broken dishes would be cleared and thrown away, but at the flat, Isadora liked to keep shards of china in a paper bag on the counter. She talked of arranging the delicate filigreed pieces to make something even finer than what was broken, but she had no technique for it, and the bag ultimately gathered more of the ever-present black soot, as it waited for its chance to upend shards over whichever child found it first.
The book is told through variety characters (Isadora, her sister Elizabeth, Paris, Max who was Elizabeth's significant other) in short chapters which I was thankful for because I found I couldn't handle any of them for long stretches.
Max, a teacher at Isadora's school is a decidedly odd duck:
Max himself had always been told he was named after a member of the Austrian navy, but on her deathbed his mother confessed that they had actually named him after a favorite dog. The original Max was a schnauzer and a good boy by all accounts.
I found myself highlighting many passages for both merit and humor. For merit:
“In order to understand the greatest joys of life, you must do more than open yourself to its greatest sorrows,” I say, “you must invite it to join you in your home and beguile it to stay. You can live well enough, strolling by the shopwindows of grief and going in before the rain. But you will never know the true beauty and brutality of life, and you cannot be a true artist.
For humor:
How dare you. Take your place in the anal tendon of artistic merit, you disease. You don’t have a bit of philosophy you didn’t scrape off the shoes of greater men, and there is no greater man than me. I am your very own father and mother both, and I am putting you out on your ass.
Despite all this the whole of the work did not appeal to me and was a chore to read. I am sure that others will like it, as I have noticed a number of 5 star reviews, but I wouldn't push anyone into the reading of it.
Isadora Duncan sometimes believed to be the mother of modern dance has fascinated me since watching an episode about her on Death Valley Days aeons ago. Amelia Gray recreates her life after the tragic death of her two young children in 1913. At the time she was living with Paris Singer, the father of her younger child, Patrick. Paris is one of the many children of Isaac Singer the inventor of the Singer sewing machine.
Everything about Isadora is unusual as Gray oh so wittily details:
It was worse than a hotel, where at least the things were cared for and a pleasant anonymity greeted him each morning. In a hotel, broken dishes would be cleared and thrown away, but at the flat, Isadora liked to keep shards of china in a paper bag on the counter. She talked of arranging the delicate filigreed pieces to make something even finer than what was broken, but she had no technique for it, and the bag ultimately gathered more of the ever-present black soot, as it waited for its chance to upend shards over whichever child found it first.
The book is told through variety characters (Isadora, her sister Elizabeth, Paris, Max who was Elizabeth's significant other) in short chapters which I was thankful for because I found I couldn't handle any of them for long stretches.
Max, a teacher at Isadora's school is a decidedly odd duck:
Max himself had always been told he was named after a member of the Austrian navy, but on her deathbed his mother confessed that they had actually named him after a favorite dog. The original Max was a schnauzer and a good boy by all accounts.
I found myself highlighting many passages for both merit and humor. For merit:
“In order to understand the greatest joys of life, you must do more than open yourself to its greatest sorrows,” I say, “you must invite it to join you in your home and beguile it to stay. You can live well enough, strolling by the shopwindows of grief and going in before the rain. But you will never know the true beauty and brutality of life, and you cannot be a true artist.
For humor:
How dare you. Take your place in the anal tendon of artistic merit, you disease. You don’t have a bit of philosophy you didn’t scrape off the shoes of greater men, and there is no greater man than me. I am your very own father and mother both, and I am putting you out on your ass.
Despite all this the whole of the work did not appeal to me and was a chore to read. I am sure that others will like it, as I have noticed a number of 5 star reviews, but I wouldn't push anyone into the reading of it.
July 19, 2017
What a complex, complicated novel - one that defies easy reading, defies tidy consideration. First of all, what a left turn for Amelia Gray: a historical novel about Isadora Duncan, from the author of Threats? And yet, it's clearly the same author and it's a marvelous stretch to see her working in a totally different mode.
The book is about 16 or so months of Isadora's life, starting from the accidental death of her two children in an automobile accident. It is a portrait of grief, of artistic desire, of strong will and stronger universal pressures. It is a difficult read at times, due to the strength of the emotions running through it. It ends with, to steal from another Gray novel, a gutshot. But it is is never less than compelling, in its uniqueness and its strangeness. I've never read a novel quite like this one and don't know that I ever would've, were it not for the intrigue of an author I've read before trying something new.
The book is about 16 or so months of Isadora's life, starting from the accidental death of her two children in an automobile accident. It is a portrait of grief, of artistic desire, of strong will and stronger universal pressures. It is a difficult read at times, due to the strength of the emotions running through it. It ends with, to steal from another Gray novel, a gutshot. But it is is never less than compelling, in its uniqueness and its strangeness. I've never read a novel quite like this one and don't know that I ever would've, were it not for the intrigue of an author I've read before trying something new.
August 3, 2017
It is a singular joy to watch a writer you admire stretch her literary muscles. I love Gray's controlled language in her short stories but here her style was more languid and it's delicious. So much of this book had me thinking back to Lincoln in the Bardo as both explore parental grief (in completely different ways of course). This is excellent historical fiction capturing a period in the fascinating life of Isadora Duncan - a woman well ahead of her time
September 6, 2017
Beautiful prose but about halfway through started to feel like we weren't going anywhere. Not sure what I think of the ending. She's a gorgeous writer but probably won't re-read.
April 16, 2018
Wow. Amelia Gray wrote the hell out of this book. Also, Isadora Duncan is fascinating.
August 31, 2018
What a SLOG. I wish there was a nicer way to put this. Mostly because Amelia Gray can write. She's chosen an interesting subject, an interesting time period, a fascinating tragedy. But I have like sixty pages left and I don't know that I'm honestly going to read them.
Gray's novel centers around the famed dancer, Isadora Duncan, who lost both her children right before the first World War when they drowned in an accident. Duncan was a woman ahead of her time, who essentially redefined modern dance. Her children were fathered by two different men, one of whom was Paris Singer, son of Isaac (the sewing machine magnate.) Both of them feature in this novel. Her sister ran a dance school in a rural-ish city in Germany, sometimes resentful of living in her sister's shadow (with a foot disability of all things) but still remained Isadora's fiercest protector and advocate. What a cast of characters!
Isadora Duncan had a serious career in dance, but her sexual conquests and "free-spiritedness" often seem to overshadow that legacy. She's a sort of Zelda Fitzgerald, if you will, a decade before Zelda took the world by storm.
SOUNDS AMAZING RIGHT?! Especially coupled with the fact that Gray has shown herself a young writer more than capable, with ethereal, layered prose and an eye for complex characters. In "Isadora" she's found said characters, even though there isn't a one of them very likable. Certainly she attempts to give us a little background for why each of them has their prickles. But ultimately it seems like they're just spoiled, narcissistic artist types with no sense of responsibility. And I've said it before but I'll say it again, I do not need my characters to be likable. I only need them to be complex and well written. Gray achieves that!
So what gives? For starters, her prose is plodding and indirect. The accident happens right from the jump, and through several well-drawn scenes you get a sense of your characters. So what if you're not exactly sure what the author is talking about or who is who yet, you've got a general grasp, you'll figure it out the more you read.
No. You won't. And what's worse, the accident is the only thing happening. I wish Isadora's steady mental decline and narcissistic antics were enough to keep me engaged, but they're not. The book plods along, giving dreamy, artsy-lit type sentences for hundreds and hundreds of pages. When I don't feel rooted to the story, because there isn't really a story AND none of the characters are likable, things start to feel tedious.
AnD THEn. Sally Sue presses her fingertips against a cold window pane, instead of, Sally Sue looked out the window. Billy Bob drank from the glass full of golden liquid, instead of, Billy Bob drank the lemonade.
It's relentless guys. I'm sorry. The Emperor has no clothes. About two hundred pages in I began to ask myself, WHY DOES THIS FEEL LIKE SUCH A CHORE? Then it hit me, especially at the end of her short chapters--Gray peppers us with out of control allusions and misty, dreamy like moments that are supposed to be Isadora's grief and failing mental state. But I ALREAdY don't know where she is and who she's with. I'm bored now. Bored and frustrated. And carrying a 350-page hardcover on the train.
At this point in my life I have little to no patience for a book that I can't read on the subway. I'm on the subway more than two hours a day every day. I should be able to read a frickin book. But over and over again I found myself getting drawn into a paragraph or two of "Isadora" only to moments later read entire pages unsure of what was happening. One of my most esteemed writing teachers used to always ask us during critiques, "It's pretty, but what does it mean?"
I'd say that question pretty much sums it up.
Gray's novel centers around the famed dancer, Isadora Duncan, who lost both her children right before the first World War when they drowned in an accident. Duncan was a woman ahead of her time, who essentially redefined modern dance. Her children were fathered by two different men, one of whom was Paris Singer, son of Isaac (the sewing machine magnate.) Both of them feature in this novel. Her sister ran a dance school in a rural-ish city in Germany, sometimes resentful of living in her sister's shadow (with a foot disability of all things) but still remained Isadora's fiercest protector and advocate. What a cast of characters!
Isadora Duncan had a serious career in dance, but her sexual conquests and "free-spiritedness" often seem to overshadow that legacy. She's a sort of Zelda Fitzgerald, if you will, a decade before Zelda took the world by storm.
SOUNDS AMAZING RIGHT?! Especially coupled with the fact that Gray has shown herself a young writer more than capable, with ethereal, layered prose and an eye for complex characters. In "Isadora" she's found said characters, even though there isn't a one of them very likable. Certainly she attempts to give us a little background for why each of them has their prickles. But ultimately it seems like they're just spoiled, narcissistic artist types with no sense of responsibility. And I've said it before but I'll say it again, I do not need my characters to be likable. I only need them to be complex and well written. Gray achieves that!
So what gives? For starters, her prose is plodding and indirect. The accident happens right from the jump, and through several well-drawn scenes you get a sense of your characters. So what if you're not exactly sure what the author is talking about or who is who yet, you've got a general grasp, you'll figure it out the more you read.
No. You won't. And what's worse, the accident is the only thing happening. I wish Isadora's steady mental decline and narcissistic antics were enough to keep me engaged, but they're not. The book plods along, giving dreamy, artsy-lit type sentences for hundreds and hundreds of pages. When I don't feel rooted to the story, because there isn't really a story AND none of the characters are likable, things start to feel tedious.
AnD THEn. Sally Sue presses her fingertips against a cold window pane, instead of, Sally Sue looked out the window. Billy Bob drank from the glass full of golden liquid, instead of, Billy Bob drank the lemonade.
It's relentless guys. I'm sorry. The Emperor has no clothes. About two hundred pages in I began to ask myself, WHY DOES THIS FEEL LIKE SUCH A CHORE? Then it hit me, especially at the end of her short chapters--Gray peppers us with out of control allusions and misty, dreamy like moments that are supposed to be Isadora's grief and failing mental state. But I ALREAdY don't know where she is and who she's with. I'm bored now. Bored and frustrated. And carrying a 350-page hardcover on the train.
At this point in my life I have little to no patience for a book that I can't read on the subway. I'm on the subway more than two hours a day every day. I should be able to read a frickin book. But over and over again I found myself getting drawn into a paragraph or two of "Isadora" only to moments later read entire pages unsure of what was happening. One of my most esteemed writing teachers used to always ask us during critiques, "It's pretty, but what does it mean?"
I'd say that question pretty much sums it up.
February 7, 2017
Gray writes a cruel and brilliant fever dream. Isadora will consume you together with the ashes of her children but with far less care. Despite their bodily pain and ethereal violence, Gray created a coterie of characters I could not bear to part with.
April 6, 2017
Dense and haunting, and a pretty bold departure from Gray's previous work.
June 15, 2017
This is kind of hard to get in to and all the characters are super unlikable and it's depressing af and I LOVED it.
February 25, 2020
Amelia Gray's biographical fiction, Isadora, tells the story of revolutionary early 20th century dancer Isadora Duncan, from almost the very moment her children are killed in an unlikely car crash to approximately age 36, which is breathtaking in its significance to the story Gray chooses to tell.
Arguably, the story she tells of Duncan's life will necessarily make most readers uncomfortable and I would say it polarized our book club, except that one person's shameless infatuation amidst four cries of outrage is not really "polarizing" as much as it was "summarily rejected except for one weird lady in the club." Well hello! Nice to meet you. I am that one weird lady.
With every sentence, Gray had me completely in her authorial grip. Reading Isadora was like eating an endlessly decadent meal with a richly complex and thoughtful wine portfolio to complicate each course. Perhaps I should not have read Cork Dork alongside this one, but it seems to be working for my purposes here.
Ultimately, Gray's writing in this instance was nothing short of artistic movement, complete with tragedy, humor, and an aggressive juxtaposition between the authentic human experience and our compulsory human performance. If this was a wine, I was getting Dosteovsky on the nose with Seinfeld on the finish. As Elizabeth writes in her final letter to Romano, abandoning all romantic pretense ("I now there is no connection between us, subtle or otherwise") and after a few weeks of collaging news reports of tragedy and death against a backdrop of ladies in cosmetics ads (For this method I find the larger and more violent events the most attractive...):
"She thinks that her suffering will be rewarded with glory, that joy and pain will be balanced on a scale the size of her life, but she's wrong. Happiness is not earned. We fall on it like drunks, then pick ourselves up and stumble away, looking for all the world like we're dancing."
Arguably, the story she tells of Duncan's life will necessarily make most readers uncomfortable and I would say it polarized our book club, except that one person's shameless infatuation amidst four cries of outrage is not really "polarizing" as much as it was "summarily rejected except for one weird lady in the club." Well hello! Nice to meet you. I am that one weird lady.
With every sentence, Gray had me completely in her authorial grip. Reading Isadora was like eating an endlessly decadent meal with a richly complex and thoughtful wine portfolio to complicate each course. Perhaps I should not have read Cork Dork alongside this one, but it seems to be working for my purposes here.
Ultimately, Gray's writing in this instance was nothing short of artistic movement, complete with tragedy, humor, and an aggressive juxtaposition between the authentic human experience and our compulsory human performance. If this was a wine, I was getting Dosteovsky on the nose with Seinfeld on the finish. As Elizabeth writes in her final letter to Romano, abandoning all romantic pretense ("I now there is no connection between us, subtle or otherwise") and after a few weeks of collaging news reports of tragedy and death against a backdrop of ladies in cosmetics ads (For this method I find the larger and more violent events the most attractive...):
"She thinks that her suffering will be rewarded with glory, that joy and pain will be balanced on a scale the size of her life, but she's wrong. Happiness is not earned. We fall on it like drunks, then pick ourselves up and stumble away, looking for all the world like we're dancing."
January 12, 2018
This book is slow-paced and fairly unconcerned with plot; everything that "happens" is outlined in the blurb. What follows is an unfolding of grief, from the moment of the death of Isadora's two young children Patrick and Deirdre. The perspective shifts mostly between the title character, her sister Elizabeth, second husband Paris Singer, German employee Max Merz, and letters to various of the sisters' lovers, including an Italian man named Romano and Isadora's first husband Teddy. These short slivers of lives add dimension to the story and respite from Isadora's intensity (though "plain" Elizabeth seems to live a more enriching daily life than Isadora -- except when Isadora is doing something particularly wild, like conceiving a child with a stranger in a mechanized Victorian changing room on a beach in Italy.)
Amelia Gray's short stories have gripped me and terrified me in equal parts, so I went into this book with high hopes for a visceral read. Here, I was mostly disappointed. Where moments of Amelia's sensibility peek through in really lovely snatches of prose, this book felt like a departure from her earlier short fiction (I have not yet read her first novel, Threats.) I tired of the reading almost immediately, and had to push myself to keep going. I don't regret the read at all, or begrudge Amelia for writing it in this way, I just think she set herself up for a plodding narrative by beginning the book where she did (with child death & adult depression) and never really moving the text beyond its own constraints, both plot- and form-wise.
Amelia Gray's short stories have gripped me and terrified me in equal parts, so I went into this book with high hopes for a visceral read. Here, I was mostly disappointed. Where moments of Amelia's sensibility peek through in really lovely snatches of prose, this book felt like a departure from her earlier short fiction (I have not yet read her first novel, Threats.) I tired of the reading almost immediately, and had to push myself to keep going. I don't regret the read at all, or begrudge Amelia for writing it in this way, I just think she set herself up for a plodding narrative by beginning the book where she did (with child death & adult depression) and never really moving the text beyond its own constraints, both plot- and form-wise.
August 22, 2018
The writer can do long form. She is not simply an ominous enchantress of oracular declamations. You might expect that the presence here of familiar literary devices such as character, plot, setting, ad nauseum, you might expect that would buffer the jarring disturbances shrieking from the prose itself, but you would be wrong. Amelia Gray displays consummate craftiness here once again, delivering an opportunity for the reader to realize that the sigh, chortle, and death rattle are not so far apart. See:
"My nurse is patient with her spoon, but her hand quakes with age and inattention, the tremor enough to bail most of the chicken broth port or starboard en route to the mouth, pale limonate buttons weeping across the bed. When it reaches me, the spoon holds only a foul memory in warm silver. She eyes it with dread, as if dark magic has willed the liquid away."
Reading Isadora is as enjoyable as gnawing an ant bite lodged in the web between fingers. No satisfaction like the sickness of sinking your teeth into it. The world is your blister. Let content and disquiet ooze together.
"My nurse is patient with her spoon, but her hand quakes with age and inattention, the tremor enough to bail most of the chicken broth port or starboard en route to the mouth, pale limonate buttons weeping across the bed. When it reaches me, the spoon holds only a foul memory in warm silver. She eyes it with dread, as if dark magic has willed the liquid away."
Reading Isadora is as enjoyable as gnawing an ant bite lodged in the web between fingers. No satisfaction like the sickness of sinking your teeth into it. The world is your blister. Let content and disquiet ooze together.
June 29, 2017
Alas, I stopped reading this well-received novel after about 60 pages. While it is clear what a talented writer Amelia Gray is, the grinding sadness, howling grief, and other-worldliness of the opening of the book (set immediately after the tragic accidental drowning of Isadora Duncan's two young children) were too hard to bear.
Read
July 21, 2017Read Dani Hedlund's interview with Amelia Gray about Isadora: https://tetheredbyletters.com/intervi...
November 27, 2017
A dream
January 9, 2022
Isadora Duncan’s life is truly tragic and fascinating but this book I found to be rather dry and over done. Grey is a good writer but seems to be trying to be a bit too clever. It isn’t for me this one.
July 6, 2017
Not much to this story, really, which is surprising given the subject matter. Bored me to tears, is my short take. For a longer review, go to www.cloquetriverpress.com.
Peace.
Mark
Peace.
Mark
May 22, 2017
There's an interesting novel in here, one about grief and loss and art, but it's bogged down by the style. The novel begins on the day that Isadora's children drown in a car accident in the Seine and spans the next 18 months or so told by a rotating cast of 4 characters - Paris Singer, Isadora's lover and father of her younger child, Elizabeth, Isadora's sister, Max, Elizabeth's lover (? Maybe) and a teacher at the Duncan school in Darmstadt, and Isadora herself. Now, the major snag here is that Isadora narrates in the first person and everyone else in a close third person POV, with some letters mixed in, and that makes it hell to read. Also, while some of Paris's sections were interesting absolutely none of Max's sections were worth reading, IMO. Isadora's sections are the strongest, and most beautiful, with Elizabeth's a perfect contrast as the sister always in the shadow. If I could take a knife, and snip out only these two narrators (and magically make Isadora's a close third POV) this would be a marvelous novel.
May 13, 2017
Thanks Farrar, Straus and Giroux and netgalley for this ARC.
Never before have I read about Isadora with so much empathy, gritty truths, and honest feelings. She was a amazing woman who lived thru events that could kill anyone's spirit. A maverick before her time.
Never before have I read about Isadora with so much empathy, gritty truths, and honest feelings. She was a amazing woman who lived thru events that could kill anyone's spirit. A maverick before her time.
June 28, 2017
when it isn't tedious, this book is a masterclass in style and substance.
May 31, 2017
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Isadora Duncan was on the cutting edge, taking on traditional ballet and changing it into her own inimitable style. This book, unfortunately, does not really touch on Isadora's dance; it focuses on the effects of the death of Isadora's young children. Although gritty and real, this is disappointing in that the plot is underdeveloped and scattered. Only my opinion.
Isadora Duncan was on the cutting edge, taking on traditional ballet and changing it into her own inimitable style. This book, unfortunately, does not really touch on Isadora's dance; it focuses on the effects of the death of Isadora's young children. Although gritty and real, this is disappointing in that the plot is underdeveloped and scattered. Only my opinion.
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