Reading The Turnout is akin to eating a rich chocolate cake as it's impossible to devour it at pace. The book feels so delicate and so intrusive that I enjoyed it most when I had time to savour only a few pages in a sitting. Each paragraph seems to have been carefully constructed and is packed with nuance or meaning or intense description, with distinct rhythms and careful observations, often packing a small punch to round off.
There's a sense of increasing claustrophobia as newly built walls close in, the air stifling and the heat becoming unbearable. It's almost the opposite of the boiling frog thing- as the temperature rises it just gets hotter and hotter until it's excruciating.
Dara and Marie run a ballet school along with Dara's husband, Charlie. These guys form the threesome at the centre of the piece. They're building up to the annual performance of The Nutcracker when a fire puts the show in doubt. In steps a local builder who has a way with women, a kind of hypnotic power that is all-controlling and consuming. When Marie falls under his spell, the suffocation begins, a slow strangulation of the trio's lives, exposing their pasts and present all the way to the bone.
This being Megan Abbott, there's a real sense of the sinister throughout and, because this is often only suggested or hinted at, it's like the pages are full of ghosts. To stretch the rich cake idea, this one is made from the darkest chocolate.
It's a real achievement and I thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of forcing myself to read on to find out what would happen when part of me wanted to put the story on hold because I couldn't cope with the increasing tension.
If your bag is fast-paced action or page-turning thrills, this may not be for you. If you like a slow-burning novel of intimate depths and delicate phrasing, one that sucks the air from the room as you go, then jump right in.
