Melanie Hamrick's New Novel Shares the 'Sexy' World of Ballet and Partner Mick Jagger Was Among Its First ... - PEOPLE

Melanie Hamrick may have spent 15 years with the American Ballet Theater, but make no mistake: her juicy new novel, while set in the ballet world, is no memoir.

"It definitely is a fiction story! It wasn't pulled from my personal stories," she tells PEOPLE of the book. "I think it's pulled from many people's experiences and what I witnessed over the years. You're watching the show, but in the wings, it's all madness — craziness and quick-change booths.”

Hamrick, 36, had plenty to look to when it came to writing about sex, drugs and ballet in her debut novel First Position (out Tuesday via Penguin Random House). She spent 15 years as a member of the corps de ballet before her 2019 retirement from the American Ballet Theater, and has also dabbled in choreography.

"Ballet's so romantic and sexy," she says. "[Writing about it] was actually therapeutic in a way. I had retired probably about six months before I started writing, and I had been venturing more into choreography while I was thinking, 'What do I want to do after ballet?' And then when Covid hit and the theaters all shut down, choreography wasn’t really an option."

An avid reader since childhood, Hamrick first fell in love with Charlotte's Web at 8 years old. She says she always has "at least" four books on her at all times, and had long thought about what it would be like to put pen to paper herself.

Courtesy Penguin Random House

When lockdown hit, she finally felt moved to do so, with her initial goal being to simply write something fun that she herself would want to read.

Before long, she'd woven an erotic story about the life of Sylvie, a young ballerina whose promising career is nearly derailed by a scandalous affair with her company's assistant director. Then, years down the line, she’s tempted once more by a sexy new principal dancer.

"Because I had retired so recently, it brought the whole experience full circle, and I got to sit down and write a tale," she says. "It's not about my career because it's fiction. But in a weird way, I felt really connected to the dance world writing the book."

Among her first readers? Longtime partner Mick Jagger, with whom she shares 6-year-old son Deveraux. Hamrick says the Rolling Stones rocker, 79, "was so supportive" of her career pivot, and offered feedback, too.

Mick Jagger, Melanie Hamrick, Deveraux Jagger.

Melanie Hamrick/Instagram

"In the beginning, I let him read a lot because I was coming up with ideas. Writing a song is similar, and now in my mind I'm like, 'How did he fit it all in five minutes? That's crazy,'" she says. "He was incredibly supportive from the beginning and then after the first draft was done I was like, 'OK, you're going to have to wait for it to come out. You have to buy a copy.'"

For Hamrick, diving back into the world of ballet was something of a walk down memory lane. As she wrote, she reflected on her experiences in the industry, including the difficulties that arose when she became pregnant with her son in 2016.

"At the time when I was in the company, I think there was maybe one or two other women who had children, out of a company of 80 dancers," she says. "It was a big struggle seeing my body change. I wasn’t used to not having control over it."

She returned to the stage just three or four months after giving birth to Deveraux, but now says she finds it "crazy" that she ever pushed herself that hard.

"Why did I put that much pressure on myself to return and prove to everyone, 'I can come back really quick and I can be just as good as I was and I can look just as good as I was'?" she says. "I remember going in to visit one day and they were like, 'Oh, you look like you're ready to go, come back in!' It was not even six weeks. No. Just because you look ready doesn’t mean you are ready, and I had to realize that."

With Deveraux now 6 years old, Hamrick has found the work-life balance she was craving, and is thrilled that her son gets to watch his parents do what they love most for a living.

"It's funny because now Dev is seeing me as more traditional, sitting at a desk and working," she says. "He's like, 'Is that work?' His idea of work looks like fun. You're jumping on stage, you're dancing, you're dressing up. So I explain to him, 'Well, it's because I love it that it's fun.' He's constantly seeing people doing what they love as work and I think that's really important."

The youngest Jagger is already enrolled in dance classes, which mom says he started "begging" for about a year ago; he's now trying everything from hip-hop and tap to, yes, ballet.

As she continues to enjoy a "nomadic" life with Jagger and their son, Hamrick is ready for the world to dive into First Position.

"I really don't want people to be put off thinking, 'Oh, it's a ballet story and it's about ballet and I need to understand ballet to understand the book,' because I wanted to make it more mainstream," she says. "And that was the fun thing about fiction, that you can make it up and it's exciting and make it more dramatic. I just really hope that people enjoy reading it. You can enjoy it at the beach, learn about some other things and escape into another world."

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