Florence Adler Swims Forever
Rachel Beanland, 2020
Simon & Schuster
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781982132460
Summary
Over the course of one summer that begins with a shocking tragedy, three generations of the Adler family grapple with heartbreak, romance, and the weight of family secrets.
Atlantic City, 1934.
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.
Despite the cramped quarters, this is the apartment where they raised their two daughters, Fannie and Florence, and it always 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 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.
Esther only wants 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 the handsome heir of a hotel notorious for its anti-Semitic policies, seems to be in love with Florence.
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.
Based on a true story and told in the vein of J. Courtney Sullivan’s Saints for All Occasions and Anita Diamant’s The Boston Girl, Beanland’s family saga is a breathtaking portrait of just how far we will go to in order to protect our loved ones and an uplifting portrayal of how the human spirit can endure—and even thrive—after tragedy. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Rachel Beanland is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and earned her MFA in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University. She lives with her husband and three children in Richmond, Virginia. Florence Adler Swims Forever is her first novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Beanland is particularly good at conjuring… the historical moment… as American Jews try to save relatives in an increasingly untenable Nazi Germany. We see cruel obstacles to immigration, and the growing chasm between European Jews and their increasingly prosperous American counterparts.…The [America] dream is not without costs, and the dreamers are not immune to tragedy.
New York Times Book Review
In less than ten pages, I… allow[ed] Beanland's storytelling ability to overpower me.… What's remarkable is not how quickly the book hooked me, but how it held my attention during and after reading. After spending a pleasant afternoon flying through the first 96 pages, I woke up at 3 a.m. thinking about the plot. I simply couldn't put it out of my head. I finished in two days.… I felt awe.
USA Today
Beanland beautifully handles the depiction of loss and rebuilding life without a loved one, describing moments that are by turns painful and moving. The thick emotional tension will please fans of character-driven historicals.
Publishers Weekly
As the secrets threaten to spill and heartbreak blankets them, the [Adler] family must unite to face a future without Florence.… [A] richly drawn debut family saga based on the story of an ancestor of the author's. —Laura Jones, Indiana State Lib., Indianapolis
Library Journal
The novel's events take place in the shadow of the approaching Holocaust, but the author fails to engage meaningfully with it…. [H]er half-baked approach is an "add-Holocaust-and-stir" effect that lacks emotional verisimilitude.… A unique if occasionally overreaching novel.
Kirkus Reviews
Florence Adler Swims Forever… foreshadows… the coming catastrophe of the Holocaust.… [A] satisfying historical family drama.
BookPage
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points for FLORENCE ADLER SWIMS FOREVER … then take off on your own:
1. "We can’t tell Fannie. Not when the pregnancy is already so precarious." What do you think of the Adler family's decision to keep Florence's death from her sister Fannie? Would you have made the same decision? (Author Rachel Beanland has indicated that she herself is unsure that secrecy was the right choice to have made.)
2. Florence drowns early in the novel. What do we know about her? How does her death continue to haunt each of the Adlers; how does each deal with feelings of grief?
3. Talk about the novel's other characters—as well as the secrets they are keeping from one another. Whose perspective did you enjoy most? Perhaps it's 7-year-old Gussie; if so, how does a child's viewpoint, often naive, end up revealing deep truths.
4. Is Joseph's treatment of Isaac fair: the requirement that he disappear, contacting his little girl only through letters and only twice a year at that?
6. Discuss the growing threat of the holocaust under Nazi Germany as it is foreshadowed in this novel. What are the obstacles thrown in the paths of those who were desperate to emigrate to the U.S? Were you aware of the how difficult it was for European Jews to find refuge in this country? Should some Jewish refugees manage to make it to the U.S., talk about some of the challenges they faced as portrayed in Florence Adler Swims Forever.
7. What is the significance of the novel's title, the idea that Florence will "swim forever"?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)