Maggie Shipstead's first novel, Seating Arrangements, was a social satire set during an exclusive society wedding in New England. Her new novel, Astonish Me, examines another, rather different world of ritualistic precision and self-discipline – ballet.Joan, a good-but-not-great American ballerina, has a fling with famous Soviet dancer Arslan, and subsequently helps him defect, driving him across the Canadian border to New York in her car boot – a plot line probably inspired by the defection to Canada of the Russian ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1974. When their affair ends painfully, Joan gives up her life of punishing self-control and retreats to the suburbs to have a baby with her childhood suitor, Jacob. But when, much later, her son, Harry, grows into a dance prodigy, she is pulled back into her old world.

Astonish Me is about the never-ending quest for improvement and perfection – and not just in ballet. Just as Joan wished she was a dancer with special talent, her neighbour, Sandy, longs for Joan's taut physique, while Jacob is just desperate for Joan to love him more. The aspirations the novel's characters have for their children are also an extension of this theme – your children's successes are your own. Astonish Me is a gripping, thoughtful and tightly-written novel, where ballet acts as an effective metaphor for all aspirations and disappointments.