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“Muscle Memory devastated me.” —Kiese Laymon
When a searing pain starts in Lilly Dancyger’s hip at twenty-six years old, she goes to see a doctor, expecting an explanation and a treatment plan. Instead, what follows is an eleven-year search for a diagnosis—and the recalibration of her identity from a fit and healthy bartender and dancer to a person who is in pain. Remembering her chaotic childhood, during which ballet classes were a rare stabilizing force, Dancyger becomes convinced that if she can just get well enough to dance, ballet will help her conquer chronic pain.
Muscle Memory is a quietly seething braided memoir in three acts: part personal account of a lifelong relationship with ballet; part pain narrative; part researched examination of classical ballets. Dancyger exposes the systematic dismissal of women’s suffering, tests the linkages between chronic pain and trauma, and looks for answers in The Firebird—a folktale-turned-ballet about the bargains we make to free ourselves.
PRAISE FOR MUSCLE MEMORY
“A wrenching and graceful account of one woman's journey through pain. Propulsive and discursive, Muscle Memory illuminates the fickle instrument of the body, its confounding ability to produce both joy and suffering, sometimes with the very same motion.”
—Melissa Febos, national bestselling author of Girlhood and The Dry Season
“Musical, memorable, magical, lyrical.”
—Chloé Caldwell, author of Women and Trying
“A gripping, wondrously precise memoir about ballet, pain, and the complicated histories our bodies can hold.” —R. O. Kwon, author of Exhibit
“Muscle Memory devastated me. What Lilly Dancyger did to my understanding of pain, chronic pain and performance is life altering. Yes, the artistry here is next level, but please sit with what Muscle Memory is braiding with us.”
—Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lilly Dancyger is the author of First Love: Essays on Friendship, a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist, and Negative Space, winner of the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Award. Her work has been published by The New York Times, The Atlantic, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Guernica, Literary Hub, and more, and she writes the newsletter The Word Cave. Dancyger lives in New York City and teaches at the Randolph College low-residency MFA program.
BOOK INFO
Pub Date: April 20, 2027
Print Length: 110 pages
Dimensions: 5×8 inches
ISBN: 978-1-957392-53-0
“Muscle Memory devastated me.” —Kiese Laymon
When a searing pain starts in Lilly Dancyger’s hip at twenty-six years old, she goes to see a doctor, expecting an explanation and a treatment plan. Instead, what follows is an eleven-year search for a diagnosis—and the recalibration of her identity from a fit and healthy bartender and dancer to a person who is in pain. Remembering her chaotic childhood, during which ballet classes were a rare stabilizing force, Dancyger becomes convinced that if she can just get well enough to dance, ballet will help her conquer chronic pain.
Muscle Memory is a quietly seething braided memoir in three acts: part personal account of a lifelong relationship with ballet; part pain narrative; part researched examination of classical ballets. Dancyger exposes the systematic dismissal of women’s suffering, tests the linkages between chronic pain and trauma, and looks for answers in The Firebird—a folktale-turned-ballet about the bargains we make to free ourselves.
PRAISE FOR MUSCLE MEMORY
“A wrenching and graceful account of one woman's journey through pain. Propulsive and discursive, Muscle Memory illuminates the fickle instrument of the body, its confounding ability to produce both joy and suffering, sometimes with the very same motion.”
—Melissa Febos, national bestselling author of Girlhood and The Dry Season
“Musical, memorable, magical, lyrical.”
—Chloé Caldwell, author of Women and Trying
“A gripping, wondrously precise memoir about ballet, pain, and the complicated histories our bodies can hold.” —R. O. Kwon, author of Exhibit
“Muscle Memory devastated me. What Lilly Dancyger did to my understanding of pain, chronic pain and performance is life altering. Yes, the artistry here is next level, but please sit with what Muscle Memory is braiding with us.”
—Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lilly Dancyger is the author of First Love: Essays on Friendship, a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist, and Negative Space, winner of the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Award. Her work has been published by The New York Times, The Atlantic, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Guernica, Literary Hub, and more, and she writes the newsletter The Word Cave. Dancyger lives in New York City and teaches at the Randolph College low-residency MFA program.
BOOK INFO
Pub Date: April 20, 2027
Print Length: 110 pages
Dimensions: 5×8 inches
ISBN: 978-1-957392-53-0