On a Limb

A photographer at a marital crossroads finds her muse in an injured ballerina in R.O. Kwon's crackling, sensualExhibit (Riverhead). Here, Kwon shares her inspirations.

"FAST CAR" Tracy Chapman, 1988 "I usually listen to one or two songs on repeat while I write, and 'Fast Car' is a song I've looped often. Its story of love pursued and love broken is powerful every time I hear it, and then there's that astonishing voice."

SHOSTAKOVICH TRILOGY

Alexei Ratmansky, 2013 While watching Ratmansky's ballets for the first time, "I felt as though the dancing bodies onstage were talking directly to corresponding parts of my body, cell to cell. It was an ecstatic experience, one that soon led me to Exhibit's story of a woman who becomes infatuated with a ballerina."

THE BROTHERS SUN

Netflix, 2024

Kwon calls the show about a triad family "spellbinding, hilarious, and hard to forget. I'm intensely moved by its explorations of a question I follow in my own fiction: What might you risk to pursue your core desires?"