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Searching... Monmouth Public Library | Fic Jaffe, S. 2015 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
It's 1992, and the world is caught up in the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the Balkan Wars, but for Julie Winter, 15, the news is noise. In Portland, Oregon, Julie moves through her days in a series of negatives: the skaters she doesn't think are cute, the Guatemalan backpack she doesn't buy at the craft fair, the umbrella she refuses to carry despite the incessant rain. Her family life is routine and restrained, and no one talks about Julie's older brother, a one-time Olympic hopeful swimmer who now lives in self-imposed exile in Berlin. Julie has never considered swimming herself, until Alexis, the swim team captain, tries to recruit her. It's a dare, and a flirtation--and a chance for Julie to find her brother, or to finally let him go.
Author Notes
Sara Jaffe 's fiction has appeared in publications including Fence, BOMB, NOON, matchbook, and Paul Revere's Horse. She co-edited The Art of Touring (Yeti, 2009), an anthology of writing and visual art by musicians drawing on her experience as guitarist for post-punk band Erase Errata. She lives and teaches in Portland, OR.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
This debut reads like a journal of sophomore Julie Winter's quiet life in Portland, OR, in 1992. Her world is uncomplicated: browse the local craft fair and watch the skaters; go to school and cut insignificant captions for the yearbook; return home to avoid parental engagement; and try to forget her brother's absence. The only indication of her restlessness is an obsession with swim magazines at the local store. Until Alexis, the swim team captain, notices Julie's broad shoulders and connects her last name to her brother's legend. Finally, Julie moves from wallflower to social participant as she lands a spot on the swim team and begins to piece together her brother's history, starting with his childhood friend, Ben. The writing is simple, curious, and aloof, morphing with each new social expectation and teenage urge. Julie is a likable character whose story reads like half of the diary entries pulled from Julie's sophomore year as she struggles with understanding her sexuality, family dynamics, and her own identity. The book's incompleteness leaves readers to hope for Julie's happy ending in spite of ominous circumstances. Dryland is a special, realistic, and understated take on what it means to be a teenager in America. VERDICT For fans of A.S. King's Ask the Passengers (Little, Brown, 2012).-Jamie Lee Schombs. Regis Jesuit High School, Aurora, CO © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Jaffe's exceptional debut, a heartfelt coming-of-age story set in Portland, Ore., in 1992, exquisitely captures the nostalgia and heartbreak of youth. Teenage Julie Winter tries to make meaningful connections as she navigates the tricky world of high school cliques, while living in the shadow of her older brother, Jordan, a former Olympic hopeful now living in Germany. She and her friend Erika hang out together, dissecting every nuance of their peers' actions. Julie surreptitiously checks the swimming magazines at the local news store to see whether her noncommunicative brother has reentered the sport that once dominated the Winter family when he was an up-and-coming star. A radical shift occurs when the popular Alexis, cocaptain of the swim team, invites Julie to try out. Erika joins as well, and Julie feels both overwhelmed and at home in the water, coping with her brother's legacy yet wanting to make her own mark. A new relationship with one of her brother's fellow swimmers, Ben, now a freelance landscaper who also works as a magazine rep at her local store, provides her with some unexpected clues about Jordan's life. Using spare, precise prose, and with a fresh, strong voice, Jaffe explores Julie's budding sexuality, her unexpected attraction to Alexis, her awareness of the limitations of friendship, and the angst young women face as they begin to confront adulthood. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A coming-of-age story about a young girl's growing awarenessof sexuality, loss, and family truths. Jaffe's debut novel begins quietly, like a swimmer's sleek dive into a pool. Pools and swimming feature prominently in this haunting story about a girl struggling in a family blighted by the departure, years earlier, of her older brother, who was a star competitive swimmer. Fifteen-year-old Julie lives with her parents, who are quiet and hands-off to the point of near-absence. When an older student, Alexis, suggests Julie join the swim team along with her best friend, Erika, Julie's response is ambivalentshe hasn't swum for a long time and warily defines swimming as her brother's world. Competitive swimming is clearly both Julie's fascination and some kind of nemesis, but she's encouraged by Alexis' interest, which is distractingly intense. A flirtatious and powerful attraction grows between the two girls, one Julie is quietly committed to acknowledging but Alexis, with a boyfriend and "popular girl" visibility, is less so. As Julie struggles to deal with her relationship with Alexis, to compete as a swimmer, to conduct herself appropriately at parties, and to be a good friend to the increasingly boy-crazy Erika, we relive the awkward agonies of adolescence, so well-sketched by Jaffe. With writerly acuteness, Jaffe focuses close attention on materialsthe clutch of a too-tight swimsuit, the comfort of a warm sweatshirtmaybe because adolescence is so much about trying to fit inside external layers or because clothes can have outsize importance before real self-definition takes place. But Julie moves slowly and steadily toward that, finding the honest people she needs and eventually even finding her way to the truth about her brother. Moving sideways with its weight of secrets, this novel never strikes a false note. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
New York Review of Books Review
I'm a sucker for a novel in which things happen, whether that's a plot twist or a startling revelation of character. Not all readers share this need, I know, and fans of quieter books might find that Jaffe's first novel hits the spot. Fifteen-year-old Julie Winter joins the swim team in Portland, Ore. in the early 1990s after her brother, Jordan, an Olympic hopeful, has fled to Berlin under murky circumstances. Trying to live up to his legend through a sport that does not come naturally to her, Julie is forced to confront the one thing they do share - being gay in a community that offers little support. Jaffe's directness of style - think of Denis Johnson without the caustic humor - lends itself well to the emotional tenor of adolescence, and gives Julie the feel of a drifter, someone who is wholly in her body but seemingly unattached to any other point on earth. When Julie first encounters Alexis, an older girl who persuades her to join the swimming team, she says simply, "I knew, I don't know how, that I needed to get her to not walk away." Reeling after their first sexual encounter and their tacit agreement to hide their attraction, she says simply, "There was no one to tell me what was normal." The threat of AIDS, as well as the haziness around Jordan's absence, are meant to further amplify the costs of being gay in the '90s, but the revelation is predictable and remains largely unexplored beyond the nausea and tears it causes. "A dark sewer surged up in me. It had been there and I'd pushed it down and now it came up so fast I thought it might black me out," Julie tells us, but never goes on to parse that darkness. It's a disappointing choice. In keeping the specifics in the shadows and Julie's inner life off the page, Jaffe leaves too many dots unconnected to complete the are she sets up so well. MIRA JACOB is the author of "The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing."
Library Journal Review
This slim, spare novel is told entirely in first person by Julie Winter, a 15-year-old from Portland, OR, who deeply misses her estranged older brother. Over time, we discover that Julie's brother had been a star swimmer in high school, failed to qualify for the Olympics, and may now be living in Berlin. Julie's parents don't speak of their son, but there is an overwhelming feeling of sadness in the family that profoundly affects Julie's development. Her sole friend, Erika, is steadfast, although obsessed with skater boys and at a loss about what to do about Julie's secretiveness. At the urging of a classmate to whom she is attracted, Julie joins the swim team. It's a chance to try to understand her brother, explore her sexuality, and develop her own identity. VERDICT Quiet and understated with a touch of melancholy, like a damp Northwest winter, this debut coming-of-age novel presents one person's truth in a way that may resonate with readers seeking a deeper understanding of sexual identity.-Christine Perkins, Whatcom Cty. Lib. Syst., Bellingham, WA © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.