Aquamarine - Hardcover

Anshaw, Carol

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0395585627 ISBN 13: 9780395585627

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1992

Synopsis

Explores three hypothetical schemas that could have been the life of swimmer Jesse Austin if she had made different choices and had not been haunted by her loss in the Mexico City Olympics. 10,000 first printing.

About this title

Reviews

For those with a yen for a choose-your-own-adventure novel, Village Voice Literary Supplement contributor Anshaw (author, as Carol White, of They Do It All With Mirrors, 1978) establishes the character of a young Olympic swimmer and then offers three separate versions of her destiny--all of them equally depressing. It was a pivotal moment--the instant before Jesse Austin leapt into the pool at the Mexico City Olympic Games when she looked over at her competitor and lover, Marty Finch, and knew the other girl was going to win the meet. After that moment, and the ones that immediately follow in which Marty is awarded the event's gold medal and Jesse the silver, Jesse's future seems almost irrelevant. Anshaw echoes her character's fundamental indifference by presenting three possible futures in which Jesse's circumstances change--though her deepest relationships (with her withholding mother, with her beloved, sharp-witted godmother, and with various men) remain roughly the same. Whether Jesse falls into the safety of marriage to a hometown man, flees to N.Y.C. to teach literature and set up housekeeping with a female actress, or operates a swimming academy in Florida while raising two children on her own, her thoughts remain on that shining moment in her past--and her obsession with knowing whether Marty Finch, her first love, coldheartedly seduced her to win the gold prevents her from moving on. Anshaw's talent for evoking realistic female relationships and sharp, memorable dialogue is eclipsed by the novel's overcalculated structure, which soon wears thin. Still, the results are intriguing--an imaginative, original work. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

When she was 17, Jesse Austin lost an Olympic gold medal in the 1968 100-meter women's freestyle swimming event by a hair to contender Marty Finch. Twenty-two years later, Jesse is still haunted by this loss and by her love affair with Marty. Her present life is shown in three possible versions: as a small-town wife; a New York City cosmopolitan woman involved in a lesbian relationship; and as a divorcee with two children. Anshaw's interesting format works well, providing excellent characterizations and three gripping plot lines. She employs wry humor and a deft style to explore the choices we make and why we make them, with cogent insights into sexuality and parenthood. The portraits of Jesse's independent-minded grandmother and her retarded brother, Willie, are very well done. Highly recommended.
- Harriet Gottfried, NYPL
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0395585627
• ISBN 13: 9780395585627
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 197