Winner of The National Jewish Book Awards Gold berg Prize for Debut
Fic tion.. How far would you go to hide the truth from the ones you
love the most? Atlantic City, 1934. Every summer, Esther and Joseph
Adler rent their house out to holidaymakers and move into the
apartment above the bakery they own. The apartment is where they
raised their two daughters, Fannie and Florence, and, despite the
cramped quarters, it still feels like home. 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, leaving her seven-year-old daughter
Gussie in Esther's care. After Joseph insists they take in Anna, a
young woman whom he recently helped emigrate from Nazi Germany, the
apartment is bursting at the seams. Esther wants nothing more than
to keep her daughters close and safe but some matters are beyond
her control: there's Fannie's risky pregnancy-not to mention her
always-scheming husband, Isaac-and the fact that Stuart Williams,
the heir of a hotel notorious for its anti-Semitic policies, seems
to be in love with Florence. When tragedy strikes during one of
Florence's practice swims, Esther makes the shocking decision to
keep the truth about Florence's death from Fannie-at least until
the baby is born. She pulls the rest of the family into an
elaborate web of secret keeping and lies, forcing to the surface
long-buried tensions that show us just how quickly the act of
protecting those we love can turn into betrayal. Told with humour
and tenderness and based on a true story, Rachel Beanland's debut
is a breathtaking meditation on the lengths we go to in order to
keep our families together. At its heart, it is an uplifting
portrayal of how the human spirit can endure-and even thrive-after
tragedy. Praise for Florence Adler Swims Forever: 'A wonderfully
assured and completely engrossing first novel. From the very first
page, I was completely invested in the lives of Florence, Gussie,
Anna and the rest. Florence Adler Swims Forever has muchto say
about family, loss and all the ways we have to wonder what might
have been, and it does so with great skill and a deeply humane
vision. I could not recommend it more highly." -Kevin Powers,
author of The Yellow Birds 'A perfect summer read... What's
remarkable is not how quickly the book hooked me, but how it held
my attention during and after reading...I simply couldn't put it
out of my head. I finished in two days.... I felt awe'-USA Today
'Beanland's novel draws the reader in... The situation she
describes is poignant and the characters she develops win us over
with their private grief. This is a book about the American dream.
The dream is not without costs, and the dreamers are not immune to
tragedy' - New York Times Book Review
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