Jessica Keener

Night Swim by Jessica Keener
This coming of age book took me a bit by surprise.
'It's about a young lady who has lost her mother to a tragic accident.
From that point on she is bullied and deals with it at school with help from her friends.
She tries to fit in being Jewish also. Her father sends her away for school during the week and she experiments with a boy and sex.
After they are reprimanded and sent back home they have no contact but she finds a new boy.
Like that the mother figure in the house is NOT the father's new girlfriend but a housemaid. She comes to the young girls aid and they talk to one another as she helps her get over problems.
Found at times the adult situations were a bit explicit.
Received this review copy from The Story Plant and this is my honest opinion.… (mere)

Sarah, the teenager in this novel, is part of a complicated family dynamic, and has a lot of outside angst to deal with in the midst of her own coming of age. Keener paints a realistic picture of a teenager trying to sort out what life means amidst problems that adults have a struggle to handle. She develops her characters well and does make you care what happens to them--Sarah in particular. My favorite character in the book is Dora, the black maid, who is comforting and compassionate underneath a tough (it's got nothing to do with me) veneer. I like the way Dora sees what is going on in the family, when most of its members seem sadly clueless.

Unfortunately, this just isn't my kind of book. It does not touch on what the 70s were like, it touches on the cliche of what the 70s were like. Sarah is too modern, independent and sophisticated in her thinking for a girl of the 70s. I think it would have much more traction with a younger reader. Keener writes very well and the story moves at exactly the right pace and if it had felt closer to home for me, I might have rated it higher.… (mere)

I've been taking a writing class, and the teacher asked us to buy and read this book. Then we Skyped with author Jessica Keener in class this week. I have to say, I much preferred the author to the book.

Our writing teacher's opinion was that the writing in Night Swim was far and away the best she'd read in years. I just didn't see it. Certainly there were standout moments - for instance, when the narrator describes her father eating dinner standing at the counter, bits of food dropping like pieces of him falling apart - but on the whole, I thought it was a little choppy. It also seemed to get sloppier toward the end.

I always feel bad for an author when the book is poorly edited, and that was the case here. Maybe some readers don't notice or mind, but grammar and punctuation errors yank me out of the story, as do glaring editing oversights like a very specific word used twice on the same page or used incorrectly.

Here's what I did like about the book: nearly all the supporting characters were well-developed, and Keener didn't offer any easy answers. Near the end, I found myself thinking, "Isn't she going to offer a final judgment on whether or not we are supposed to like Sherry, or some conclusive evidence that Sarah either does or does not regret her decisions?" But there's none of that, and even though it makes me uncomfortable as a reader, I appreciate the ambiguity.… (mere)

Sarah Kunitz, 15 Jahre alt, lebt mit ihren drei Brüdern und den Eltern in einer Vorstadt von Boston. Der Vater ist Professor für Literatur, sehr streng und reagiert cholerisch, wenn etwas nicht nach seinen Vorstellungen läuft. Die Mutter scheint über dem Ganzen zu schweben, ihr Interesse gilt den Rosen im Garten und ihrem Club. Beide trinken zu viel, die Mutter nimmt außerdem Tabletten gegen ihre Schmerzen. Die Kinder flüchten in ihre eigenen Welten, weil sie spüren, dass etwas nicht in Ordnung ist.
Den ersten Unfall überlebt die depressive Mutter, beim nächsten Unfall stirbt sie. Keiner redet mit den Kindern über die Hintergründe. Die Familie droht auseinander zu brechen. Peter flüchtet aus dem Haus, um Musik zu machen. Robert versinkt in seinen Fantasybüchern. Elliot das Nesthäckchen ist ein abgeklärtes, liebenswertes Kind, das mit seinen Spielzeugtieren redet und von ihnen Antwort erhält. Sarah kümmert sich um die kleineren Brüder so gut sie kann, aber sie kann die Mutter nicht ersetzen. Sie brauchte ihre Mutter ja selbst dringend. Die Musik spielt auch für Sarah eine immer größere Rolle.
Es ist eine autobiographische Geschichte, die sehr eindringlich ist. Der Schreibstil ist voller Metaphern und Bildern.
Eine bewegende Geschichte und ein empfehlenswertes Buch.… (mere)