In brief: Sweat; Wild Grace; In Search of Amrit Kaur – review
Sweat
Emma Healey
Hutchinson Heinemann, £16.99, pp400
Personal trainer Cassie has a newly blind client, Liam. As it happens, he’s the same man who trapped her in a toxic relationship, using exercise addiction as a weapon of coercive control and obsessively monitoring every aspect of her life, from calorie intake to menstrual cycles. Now, Liam’s disability allows Cassie to pretend to be someone else, inspiring a maze-like game of revenge in which she risks losing herself. Consistently unsettling if not always plausible, Healey’s latest blends a critique of wellness culture with a creepy, slow-burn feminist thriller.
Wild Grace: The Untamed Women of Modern Dance
Sara Veale
Faber, £25, pp288
True to its subversive thrust, modern dance was a movement born of a “freewheeling fringe effort”, writes critic Sara Veale in her ardent debut. Women dominated, and Isadora Duncan, Loie Fuller and Pearl Primus are among the nine wave-makers whose stories, some better known than others, chart a rejection of 19th-century paternalism – and tutus – in favour of autonomy and egalitarianism. Rigorous research matches with a zesty turn of phrase that only occasionally feels effortful, while broader insights emerge organically into how a person might move through the world with authentic grace.
In Search of Amrit Kaur: An Indian Princess in Wartime Paris
Livia Manera Sambuy (translated by Todd Portnowitz)
Vintage, £12.99, pp352 (paperback)
Italian journalist Sambuy first encountered Amrit Kaur in a photograph in a Mumbai museum in 2007. A caption noted that the maharajah’s daughter was arrested by the Gestapo in occupied Paris, accused of selling her jewellery to help Jews leave France, and later died in prison. These tantalising snippets were sufficient to inspire a years-long, continent-spanning quest in search of the full story. Revelations – about Sambuy and Kaur both – are plentiful, while answers are scarce, making for a narrative that’s digressive, enigmatic and full of intrigue.
To order Sweat, Wild Grace or In Search of Amrit Kaur go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
