A New York Times Book of the Month
New Yorker Best Book of 2022
“A luminous chronicle of betrayal, sacrifice and creative ambition, framed by New York’s AIDS crisis in the 1980s and some seriously complex family dynamics…By the book’s close, readers will be clamoring for an extra curtain call.” —The Guardian
“Beautiful…the controlled performance is as grueling and gorgeous as a dance en pointe.” —Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, NY Times Book Review
“Deftly tackling issues like the nature of art, creativity, desire, family relationships, mortality, and the human need to be seen and validated…Beautifully layered and unforgettable.” —Buzzfeed
“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.” —Seattle Times
“A moving tale about dreams, disillusion, and the hard work of forging a self.” —People
“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…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.”
—Kirkus (starred review)
'“…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.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred 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.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“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.”
—Steven Rowley, author of The Guncle
“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.”
—Lisa Harding, author of Bright Burning Things
“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.”
—Lauren Mechling, author of How Could She
“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.”
—Jami Attenberg, New York Times bestselling author of The Middlesteins and All This Could Be Yours
“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.”
—Arthur Phillips, author of The Tragedy of Arthur
“Meg Howrey’s They’re Going to Love You is 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.”
—Maile Meloy, author of Do Not Become Alarmed
“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.”
—Chloe Angyal, author of Turning Pointe
“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.”
—Lacy Crawford, author of Notes on a Silencing