Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland
Every summer, Esther and Joseph Adler rent their house out to vacationers escaping to “America’s Playground” and move into the small apartment above their bakery. This is the apartment where they raised their two daughters, Fannie and Florence. Now Florence has returned from college, determined to spend the summer training to swim the English Channel, and Fannie, pregnant again after recently losing a baby, is on bedrest for the duration of her pregnancy. After Joseph insists they take in a mysterious young woman whom he recently helped emigrate from Nazi Germany, the apartment is bursting at the seams.
When tragedy strikes, Esther makes the shocking decision to hide the truth—at least until Fannie’s baby is born—and pulls the family into an elaborate web of secret-keeping and lies, bringing long-buried tensions to the surface that reveal how quickly the act of protecting those we love can turn into betrayal after tragedy.
Review: This was so moving. The novel opens almost immediately with an explosive event that shocks the whole Adler family. Worried that she will go into premature labor and lose yet another baby, Esther Adler decides it would be best to keep the tragic news from her hospitalized daughter Fannie. But this requires the whole family to be complicit in this deception. Meanwhile, in the background to this great tragedy, the family has taken in a young woman whose connection to the family reveals a complicated lie of omission from the father Joseph's past.
This was such a unique novel in the way it handled grief and unexpected loss. I absolutely loved that the story was based on a similar tragic incident in the author's own family tree: her great-great aunt Florence. Beanland has done a beautiful job at paying tribute to her great-great aunt, while presenting elements of her life in a very fictional tale.
The rotating perspectives really worked for me in this. Each chapter is from a different character's perspective and allowed the reader to learn a lot of detail and interior thoughts that would otherwise be missed. I felt such empathy for virtually every character in this story, who is tentatively navigating through this new version of reality - except possibly Isaac who was a particularly dislikable character.
The setting of this felt really fun and transports the reader right to Atlantic City in the 1930s, complete with beach scenes, swanky seaside hotels, and the earliest incubators, which were then tourist attractions on the boardwalk. The backdrop of war brewing in Europe is keenly felt, as is the social distinction between Jews and Gentiles. Despite everything that happens in this book - the loss, the stress on Esther and Joseph's marriage, the trauma of the death of Fannie's premature son - the book does have a positive feeling in its conclusion. I'd like to think they were all going to be ok. Life goes on.
Stars: 4
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