At the Shores: A Novel

by Thomas Rogers

At the Shores is a classic novel of love in America. Set in the Indiana dunes and Chicago, it tells the story of Jerry Engels, an appealing, handsome, middle-class boy, who even in elementary school finds himself forever in "He loved the girls in his class, the girls on the block, the maid at home, his sister's friends, some of his mother's friends. . . . He even loved girls he just happened to see out the window of the car." In high school--the renowned University of Chicago Laboratory High School--he strives to make the grades his academically superb sister made and his parents expect, but as the world becomes erotically charged for him, he finds it hard to study. Unlike other boys, who live according to the "approved doctrine that there are other things in the world besides girls--politics, cars, sports, finding out about things and fixing things, and making money"--Jerry cares only about girls. For him, "girls are a kind of blessing. When he saw a girl like Betty Lomax walking through Belfield Hall with a fresh flower tucked into her hair, he felt like kissing her out of gratitude for having bought that flower and put it in her hair." Then, at the end of his junior year, he falls deeply, passionately in love with Rosalind Ingleside, the most beautiful, respected, and wealthy girl in school, and for almost all of one summer Jerry's dream of loving and being loved is fulfilled.

"If I had a class in American Adolescence, I'd teach At the Shores in tandem with The Catcher in the Rye and Growing Up Absurd . This meticulously perceived and modest novel about growing up in America anything but absurd is probably closer to more lives than we might suspect. It does wonders for one's sense of reality."
- Philip Roth

288 pages, Paperback

First published November 14, 1980

Reviews

[Arianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

www.shelfnotes.com

Dear Reader,
I cannot for the life of me recall why I picked this book up. It was published 35 years ago, and is not widely known. But I was reading something, somewhere that mentioned it and I wanted to check it out. I had to go through my work library consortium to find a copy over at Bard College; it is not available anywhere in my local public library system and wasn’t at my own library. So clearly, I had to do a bit of work to get my hands on a copy! And yet I wish I could recall why I was so eager to do so. I know part of what happened was I thought to myself, “Hmm, this book looks good, and has some good reviews. I am going to put the request into the system because it should take a little while for it to make its way to me.” And that is exactly how things worked out. I received the book after I had forgotten I’d put the order in for it. I took it home, and began reading it, but the book is disappointingly difficult to get into because of the dense typeset and unbroken swaths of text. I honestly think that is part of what took me so long (a month!) to get through this otherwise good book: the author shunned the notion of chapters, which okay, I can work with (let’s not talk about how long the amazing Gravity’s Rainbow is taking me, for instance!). However, the author didn’t even use a line break to separate sections, which I think it just unreasonable. I would go vast chunks of the book without ever encountering a break, and then I’d find several within a few pages of each other. It felt as if there was no rhyme or reason to the choice to use or not use them, either. All of this to say: Rogers really could have used a good editor, which I think could have brought such a gem of a book to a much wider audience, too. It is unfortunate!

Because really, I did like this book. I found myself avoiding reading it because I often faced a long, unbroken chunk and not much time to devote to it, so I would pick something else up in the meantime. However, when I did get a chance to really delve into it, I was easily drawn into Jerry Engels’ world. The very white, very privileged world of a boy growing up in postwar Chicago, which oddly enough is kind of right up my alley (not the privileged part, but the young boy coming of age in the 1950s part). I don’t know why I have such a soft spot for those stories, but I do! In any case, the book revolves around the adolescence of girl-crazy Jerry, who finds himself drawn to females even from a very young age. There were some charming anecdotes from his earlier years, but the book sticks mainly to the story of his seventeenth year, when he falls in love for the first time and also loses his virginity. Since this is the true crux of the story I won’t go too far into it - suffice it to say that one reviewer (I wish I could recall where I saw this) pretty aptly called the book something like “the horny life & times of Jerry Engels.” So yeah, there is a lot of talk of sex, but what do you expect from a teenaged boy? If you can get past that part, the book definitely does move on. Taken as a whole (and not getting too distracted or annoyed by Jerry’s incessant thinking about sex for a good few score of pages), I can see why some have compared Jerry Engels to Holden Caulfield. Both boys learn some hard truths about life and grow to see things from a more mature viewpoint. (I don’t think that is a spoiler for this book.) I liked the open-ended way Rogers left things with Jerry, as well.

The water theme in the book intrigues me enough that I want to write briefly on that, as well. I thought it was interesting how the book’s title refers to the families’ summer homes on the shores of Lake Michigan, as well as how Jerry is kind of on the brink of something big and life-changing. Additionally, water plays a huge role in the book, both in moving the story along and, ultimately, ending it. Water being such a symbol of cleansing and renewing makes me think that this allusion wasn’t a mistake. I’ll have to think more on this.

And lastly, I wanted to speak a bit on the different types of women Jerry interacts with in his life, since women are of tantamount importance to him. He has a very permissive sister, a sympathetic but largely absent (in the book, not in his life) mother, an uncertain girlfriend, a bossy female friend who is like a sister, another female friend he doesn’t know as well who is portrayed as somewhat slutty, and then there is the actual prostitute...they all seem somewhat typecast (and by the way, was that a lesbian couple thrown in there casually at the end of the book?), but all so interestingly typecast. It makes me wonder about what their characters were supposed to represent - maybe it’s some sort of Freudian Madonna-Whore Complex thing? Ach, this is all too much for me to contemplate thoroughly right now…it is time for me to go to bed. So goodnight, Dear Reader!

Yours,
Arianna

[Rikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

IIn these days of the permissive society, this is the story of a young boy, growing into adolescence in an era with all the physical desires of youth but ease of satisfaction not easy to come by. Set in the shores of Lake Michigan when all the young people gather for the summer, there is an innocence in Jerry Engles, good looking but lacking in self confidence. He falls in love with Rosalind, from a rich family, who employ him to tend their tennis court and welcome him into their home as a friend. Little by little their passion takes over and they become lovers, but their relationship means different things to each of them. It is a heart warming story of a time when values were different but pain was real.

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book ought to be at least as widely read and beloved as "The Catcher in the Rye". Personally, I'd take Jerry Engels over Holden Caulfield.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

The northern state border of Indiana doesn’t nestle in the arms of Lake Michigan but kisses its bottom curve. And what a kiss it is. “High dune, grass covered, tree crowned” shoreline stretches for miles along the wave-torn lake and it is here that the story of Jerry Engels, adolescent, unfolds.

This coming-of-age story was first published by Simon & Schuster in 1980, but a few years ago it was revived by Other Press and now has just been re-released by Open Road Media in ebook format. Thomas Rogers died at age 79 in 2007.

It is 1950s Midwest. Jerry Engels is White, Protestant, and the son of a Standard Oil executive. His girlfriend, Rosalind, is an heiress and outclasses him a little. Since his early days Jerry enjoyed the company and caresses of his sister, mother, and classmates and always felt girls were more interesting and intriguing than boys. An unreflective young man, he has many friends, and his body and urges develop faster than his restraint.

I always felt there was a class of men who operated primarily on orders from their genitals and this book gives us a good example. The time, style, and world created here are reminiscent of John Updike—when White men ruled the world and their desires were the most important thing in it.

Rogers captures something fast in this novel, in both senses of the word. There is something edgy, forward, illicit in the dreams and actions of young Jerry, as well as something lasting and built into our culture: the unconscious privilege of a White man well born. I will not deny a certain impatience with the circuitous, faulty, and deafening logic of a young man ruled by his hormones. But it is as clear a picture of teenaged confusion and angst as we may find without the further complications wiser eyes may bring to a summer idyll. My parents would have said Jerry wasn’t busy enough.

Any joy I felt came from Rogers’ pitch-perfect description of the lake and its beauty, back when summer vacations were just that. Rogers is at his most eloquent when describing the Lake Michigan shoreline—the clarity of the water, the softness and heat of the sand, the nature of the waves, the intensity of the changing skies.

”Pale blue in the calm mornings, cloud darkened in the afternoons, wind roughened and white-capped during storms, the lake was always awaiting him…the sandbars below developed unexpected pockets…through the clear water…against the fine sand on the [sunlit] bottom…[where] only minnows and silver perch and a turtle [could be seen].

[Katy Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been some time since I read Catcher in the Rye. But from what I do remember, there are some similarities to Rogers' novel.

Jerry Engels is a teenager growing up in a well-off coastal town in America. There are probably many things going on in his young life - school, friends, hobbies, but we don't hear about any of that really. This is a book about Jerry discovering, liking, experiencing girls and love, from childhood through to late adolescence.

First dates, kisses and so on. Jerry's story is narrated in the third person, which to me made it seemed cold and at a distance but did allow the voice of a naive boy to come across very well. Sometimes I was frustrated with young Jerry for being so naive. At other times I felt the flushes of teenage love with him.

It's a slow story, with not much in the way of action, but a story about how boys experience first love, a minority genre. Jerry takes things to extremes, acts on instinct, thinks little or overthinks - in short, acts like a teenager learning about how the world of women works.

His sister Anne, older and about to get married (though still in college herself) tries to be the voice of wisdom and reason to her little brother, but she is often away so Jerry is left to mull his own problems over.

Sometimes touching. Sometimes a little distanced. It's a nice male-point-of-view of the trials of one boy growing into a man.

Review of a Netgalley advance copy.

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've given this book 3 stars; there were times and parts I would give 5 stars and other parts I would give one. 3 was my average.
This is not so much a coming of age book as a growing up book. Jerry is almost Holden Caulfield like in this book of juvenile and teenage angst.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorite books. Read it many many years ago. Must be due for a re-read.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jerry is a young man growing up on the edge of a great lake. He is a typical boy growing up with his mom, dad and sister. I found myself skimming.