Florence Adler Swims Forever: Book Review

Florence Adler Swims Forever

By Rachel Beanland

My own copy

Florence Adler Swims Forever, I enjoyed reading for our book club this month. Loved the time period, and the story about the beach. Since I was little I visited my Grandparents at their beach cottage at Nantasket Beach( Hull Massachusettes). I was born in the late 1950s. But the time period still caused me to reminisce( beach, amusement park, restaurants, penny candy store, sweet shops galore). ,

It is Atlantic City, 1934, and the Adler family. Their daughter Florence is home from college and Fannie, and Husband Issac, and daughter Gussie stay at their parent's home because Fannie is on bedrest at the local hospital. This would be a great time for the rest of the extended family to stay with them. This also includes Anna who is staying with the family until her parents can come over from Germany.

The family goes to the beach and Florence a professional swimmer goes out into the ocean and drowns. Esther, Florence's mother decides the best way to deal with Florence's death is not to tell Fannie what has happened to Florence. They are afraid she will lose the baby. Since her previous pregnancy, she lost the baby. 

Reading the novel at first was slow-moving, but after a while, the book picks up and doesn't give you a chance to breathe. I can't stop turning the pages. There is so much family drama with Florence's death, and Issac, and Joseph, and Anna. The pages keep moving. The themes deal with secrets, and strong mothers, Jewish Atlantic City, Immigration... 

First, Florence's death is a bit questionable. If she is such a strong swimmer, how did this happen? Stuart who is her swim couch can't understand what happened. Then there is Anna who wants to learn to swim (I'm still not sure why?) She gets involved with Stuart and hides it from the parents. Then Issac (son-in-law you don't want to like)is a swindler and trying to make a quick buck in real estate. The parents are not too happy with their daughter's husband who doesn't take responsibility of the family. Instead, he runs off and doesn't come home for days. He doesn't take care of his daughter Gussie who he should be coming home to but doesn't. Instead, the Grandparents take care of Gussie. 
 
In part of the story, I had a hard time as everyone wanted to hide the fact that Florence died. No one wanted to tell her. The whole book was hiding the truth about her sister. The entire book was how far would you go to hide things to protect the one you loved? Everyone had something to hide. How far would you go to protect yourself, and to protect the person you love?

I'm not going to tell you more as I don't want to spoil the story. But, there are some things in the story that don't connect. We should have had more explanation. I still liked the story. It just was a bit far-fetched, and still took it as fiction. It was fast-moving and recommend the book. It was very different than anything I read before. The story is based on the author's familly story of long ago in Atlantic City.