Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland

It’s an ambitious balancing act that occasionally requires a little double-checking as to whose point of view we’re following.

The novel rotates through the perspectives of Gussie, Esther, Joseph, Anna, Fannie, Fannie’s husband and Florence’s devoted young swim coach, Stuart. Each character has reasons to hide something important, which in turn affects their own happiness and relationships. There will be no funeral, no sitting shiva, no outer mourning for Florence.īut that’s not the only secret in this family novel. Florence inexplicably drowns, and Esther decides that the family must keep this secret from Fannie, for fear that Fannie will go into early labor. One family member who is not on the beach is Fannie, Florence’s older sister and Gussie’s mom, who is pregnant and in the hospital on bed rest, determined not to lose this baby as she lost the last one.īy the end of the day, the Adler family’s world has changed forever. Florence is such a competitive swimmer that she’s training to swim the English Channel later that summer. It’s a blue-sky June day, and most of the Adler family is enjoying the beach: 7-year-old Gussie Gussie’s grandparents Esther and Joseph Anna, the young German Jewish woman the family has taken in and Florence, Esther and Joseph’s younger daughter, a Wellesley College student and star swimmer. Rachel Beanland’s debut novel opens in 1934 Atlantic City.

Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland