Synopsis
A novel of psychological suspense.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1993-06-01 |
| Size | | Height: | 8.5 in | | Width: | 5.3 in | | Thickness: | 0.8 in | | Weight: | 6.4 oz |
Publisher's Note
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.
Industry Reviews
"I found myself wishing I could buy a dozen copies and start a discussion group, just so I'd be able to debate all the questions this astonishing novel provokes about the nature of the individual and her power to determine the course of her life."
Jacket Blurb - Dorothy Allison
"A remarkable book....Anshaw writes with biting humor and a touching reverence for the power of loss."
Melmoth
"This remarkable first novel traces three different possible futures, all stemming from a single cathartic moment in a woman's life. I found it stunning when I picked it up in 1992; I've still never read anything quite like it."
Cunningham
Many of us wonder what might have happened if we had made a different choice at one particular moment in our lives and how that choice would have affected everything that came after. While this is the basic premise of "Aquamarine," instead of focusing on an important moment in her character's life, Ms. Anshaw focuses instead on a small one and what results is a delightful and thought provoking novel. Jesse Austin, an ex-olympic swimmer, is on the verge of turning forty when the novel opens in 1990. Her life is depicted in three separate "stories" within the novel, each shaped by one moment of either accepting or declining to be the spokesperson for a line of swim wear. In the first story, Jesse turns down the offer. In the second, she accepts and when the commitment is over, settles in New York City. In the third, she accepts but also marries the salesman. This seemingly small moment is the focal point in time from which the three lives diverge, but it takes the reader some timeto discover this. For there is a larger moment, one that overshadows every other event in Jesse's life--and that is the moment she came in second in the hundred-meter freestyle in the 1968 Olympics, losing to the seductive Australian swimmer Marty Finch. Their secret affair, begun at the games, raises a myriad of questions. Was Jesse psyched out of winning by Marty telling her over and over again that Marty was the faster of the two? Did Jesse "give" her the win as one might present a gift to a lover? Did Jesse hesitate just a split second too long? Was she distracted? <BR>Interestingly enough, Ms. Anshaw doesn't really answer any of those questions directly, but instead lets us puzzle them through for ourselves. She lets us read into the subtext of the novel, reading beyond the carefully chosen details of Jesse's three possible lives to the magical questions of time and choices, grief and joy that lie beneath. In the first story, Jesse has never left her hometown. She's married, pregnant, but having an affair with a local man. Her brother, who's clearly slow, lives with her and her life seems quiet, without ripples. Yet underneath, there is roiling doubt. It only bubbles to the surface once, during a frank and painful conversation with Alice, the proprietor of the local gourmet restaurant. Here, Jesse lets down her guard in a way that she never does with the men and we begin to see what lies beneath her skin. The second story leaps off a small detail from the first--the fact of a woman soap opera star Jesse and her family watched with regularity in the first part. In this second aspect of Jesse's life, she and the soap queen are lovers and on their way from New York City, where they live, to visit Jesse's mother in Missouri. Jesse seems riddled with doubts of Kit's faithfulness even though Kit gives her no reason to be insecure. The visit is marred by an accident in which Kit's hand is injured when she tries to save Jesse's brother, who in this version lives in a home, from an exploding firecracker.And in the third story, Jesse is a single parent of two teenagers. Living in Florida and trying to keep a swimming school financially afloat, this is the only version in which Jesse is still actively involved with swimming. A much bleaker view than the previous two, this story bleeds into Jesse's decision to travel to Australia and visit Marty Finch, something the reader has felt building from nearly the first page. One of the magical elements of this triptych is how different Jesse seems in each facet, yet how much the same. Her sense of self, of security, of pleasure and pain seem to have a direct bearing on the people surrounding her, but she never seems totally at ease with herself, never trusts that other people will find her loveable or desireable and that seems one of the only direct links to her relationship with Marty.
Midwest Book Review (06/01/1997)
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