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Afloat
A riveting story of loyalty, betrayal and survival by a New York Times bestselling author. It is the summer of 2000, and Bell, a student from Minnesota, is employed at an exclusive restaurant on Mackinac Island. With a circumference of just nine miles and no automobiles allowed, this unique resort on Lake Michigan is teeming with horse-drawn carriages, topshelf vodka, bicycles, smoked whitefish and wild, inspiring relationships. Forty years later, Bell is stranded in her St. Paul home clearing away the belongings of a lifetime while she awaits the arrival of a guest from that deceptively idyllic summer--a guest who may hold the key that can finally unlock the secrets of that long ago summer.
- GenresFiction
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
1 person is currently reading
253 people want to read
About the author
Jennifer McCartney
21 books154 followersJennifer McCartney is a New York Times bestselling author. She is the author of numerous books including The Little Book of Sloth Philosophy, the novel Afloat; Cocktails for Drinkers; The Joy of Leaving Your Sh*t All Over the Place; and Poetry from Scratch. Her writing has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and appeared in The Atlantic, Vice Magazine, Teen Vogue, Curbed, Globe and Mail, and Publishers Weekly, among other publications. Originally from Hamilton, Ontario, she lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 18, 2009
My review ran in The Peterborough Examiner and was reprinted in The New York Review of Science Fiction.
AFLOAT
by Jennifer McCartney
Hamish Hamilton/Penguin Books
March, 2007
$29.00 HC
ISBN: 0-241-1434-46
Review by Ursula Pflug
501 words
Jennifer McCartney’s debut novel Afloat is a story of young love, loss, work, extreme weather patterns, drinking, old age and the wisdom and infirmity that come with it.
Heroine Bell has garnered a summer position as a server at a posh resort on Mackinac Island in Lake Michigan. There are no vehicles so everyone gets around on bicycle or by horse drawn carriage. Unfortunately this only serves to cover the entire town with a fine coating of powdered horse manure, except for the main tourist street which is washed down every day. The kids live in a haunted dorm called The Pines.
This is a novel about That Summer, the one that changes everything, the one you remember for the rest of your life for how it turned you into an adult. It’s the summer of your first big love affair, the first summer a close friend ever died, the summer that you keep forever in an envelope in your bedroom closet.
Then, when you are old, and your daughter helps you begin to clear out the house, you retrieve this envelope while waiting for a visit from someone you knew that summer, and haven’t seen since.
And when he arrives, he tells you things he has kept secret for fifty years, things that once again change everything.
Meanwhile, the world gently falls apart in the background, weather growing both more extreme and more random. This is an undertone, and beautifully handled. People adapt.
Many such books have been written, but few so authentically. Afloat doesn’t read as autobiographical first fiction but something broader and deeper, as though the author transposed her memories of the feelings and experiences of that first step into the world onto a place and a set of characters so seamlessly that we know what they feel, because we felt it too, in a different time and place. And, yes, Hamilton native McCartney worked in many resorts before revisiting higher education at The University of Glasgow.
Do I have any problems with this sensational novel, sure to be short-listed for and probably land some major awards?
Well, there’s slightly draggy bits describing work and middle age, but these are pretty accurate in their way. In fact, I wondered whether McCartney did a lot of interviewing or is just able to project herself into the emotional life of an older person with such acuteness.
More than one reviewer has compared this book to Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveller’s Wife, and readers who loved that novel are sure to love this one too. However, Afloat is the better book due to the precision and authentic poignancy of its insights. Chick lit it’s not.
McCartney’s only twenty-seven. Beyond her thematic universality, the particularities of her characters’ habits, their modes of dress and speech are as recognizably and finely wrought as if I were reading a book by one of my childrens’ peers. Welcome to the next generation of writers. This is the finest example of their craft I’ve read yet.
Ursula Pflug is the author of the novel Green Music and the short fiction collection After The Fires. Her short fiction has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Zencore, Strange Horizons, Bandersnatch, The Best of Leviathan, Fantasy and Bamboo Ridge.
AFLOAT
by Jennifer McCartney
Hamish Hamilton/Penguin Books
March, 2007
$29.00 HC
ISBN: 0-241-1434-46
Review by Ursula Pflug
501 words
Jennifer McCartney’s debut novel Afloat is a story of young love, loss, work, extreme weather patterns, drinking, old age and the wisdom and infirmity that come with it.
Heroine Bell has garnered a summer position as a server at a posh resort on Mackinac Island in Lake Michigan. There are no vehicles so everyone gets around on bicycle or by horse drawn carriage. Unfortunately this only serves to cover the entire town with a fine coating of powdered horse manure, except for the main tourist street which is washed down every day. The kids live in a haunted dorm called The Pines.
This is a novel about That Summer, the one that changes everything, the one you remember for the rest of your life for how it turned you into an adult. It’s the summer of your first big love affair, the first summer a close friend ever died, the summer that you keep forever in an envelope in your bedroom closet.
Then, when you are old, and your daughter helps you begin to clear out the house, you retrieve this envelope while waiting for a visit from someone you knew that summer, and haven’t seen since.
And when he arrives, he tells you things he has kept secret for fifty years, things that once again change everything.
Meanwhile, the world gently falls apart in the background, weather growing both more extreme and more random. This is an undertone, and beautifully handled. People adapt.
Many such books have been written, but few so authentically. Afloat doesn’t read as autobiographical first fiction but something broader and deeper, as though the author transposed her memories of the feelings and experiences of that first step into the world onto a place and a set of characters so seamlessly that we know what they feel, because we felt it too, in a different time and place. And, yes, Hamilton native McCartney worked in many resorts before revisiting higher education at The University of Glasgow.
Do I have any problems with this sensational novel, sure to be short-listed for and probably land some major awards?
Well, there’s slightly draggy bits describing work and middle age, but these are pretty accurate in their way. In fact, I wondered whether McCartney did a lot of interviewing or is just able to project herself into the emotional life of an older person with such acuteness.
More than one reviewer has compared this book to Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveller’s Wife, and readers who loved that novel are sure to love this one too. However, Afloat is the better book due to the precision and authentic poignancy of its insights. Chick lit it’s not.
McCartney’s only twenty-seven. Beyond her thematic universality, the particularities of her characters’ habits, their modes of dress and speech are as recognizably and finely wrought as if I were reading a book by one of my childrens’ peers. Welcome to the next generation of writers. This is the finest example of their craft I’ve read yet.
Ursula Pflug is the author of the novel Green Music and the short fiction collection After The Fires. Her short fiction has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Zencore, Strange Horizons, Bandersnatch, The Best of Leviathan, Fantasy and Bamboo Ridge.
December 23, 2023
This is probably going to become one of my favorite books in my life. So full of everything that is good. Drama, love, nostalgia, cynicism, women’s voices, old friends and Justice. I can’t recommend this book enough.
September 17, 2007
I wasn't going to love this book. I thought that it was stupid that the narrator's flashbacks took place in this era and that the "present" in the novel was actually the future.
And then I finished the book and loved it. I even cried a little. I decided not to be nit-picky and to just get over the fact that the author made the present the future.
Just one question : Did Rummy die in that pile-up at the end?
And then I finished the book and loved it. I even cried a little. I decided not to be nit-picky and to just get over the fact that the author made the present the future.
Just one question : Did Rummy die in that pile-up at the end?
January 28, 2016
A good read, especially for younger readers.
November 18, 2016
Not what I expected when I selected to read it. Pleasantly surprised that it maintained my interest and prevented me from trying to look ahead.
March 10, 2021
So ought to be better known! A bit David Lynch-esque. The ambience, quirkiness, tenderness and most of all humanness, somewhere between Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet! Stays with you a long time.
March 1, 2020
Well laid out book with interesting hometown feel of being set in Michigan. The impact of life's events on the development of the journey on the life that is chosen.
Fantastic Fiction
It is the summer of 2000 and Bell, a student from Minnesota, is employed at an elite restaurant on Mackinac Island. With a circumference of just nine miles and no automobiles allowed, this unique resort on Lake Michigan is teeming with horse-drawn carriages, top-shelf vodka, bicycles, smoked whitefish and inspiring relationships. Forty years later, Bell is stranded in her St Paul home clearing away the belongings of a lifetime while she awaits the arrival of a guest from that deceptively idyllic summer. "Afloat" is an exquisitely distilled exploration of material and spiritual values and - equally - a riveting story of loyalty, betrayal and survival.
Fantastic Fiction
It is the summer of 2000 and Bell, a student from Minnesota, is employed at an elite restaurant on Mackinac Island. With a circumference of just nine miles and no automobiles allowed, this unique resort on Lake Michigan is teeming with horse-drawn carriages, top-shelf vodka, bicycles, smoked whitefish and inspiring relationships. Forty years later, Bell is stranded in her St Paul home clearing away the belongings of a lifetime while she awaits the arrival of a guest from that deceptively idyllic summer. "Afloat" is an exquisitely distilled exploration of material and spiritual values and - equally - a riveting story of loyalty, betrayal and survival.
May 4, 2020
This is a book about young love, summer on a Mackinaw Island, drinking, aging, and decisions. I thought the story line was great especially since I am from Michigan, but I gave it only 2 stars because the writing is something to be desired. The sentences are often confusing and way out there. At times, they don't even have anything to do with the story line, hence disrupting the flow and interest in the moment. It shifts back and forth between the teenage years of working on the island in an elite restuarant and the much later years of aging and difficulties with memory. The story itself is a good one, but is at times difficult to get past the type of writing.
June 25, 2021
Not a bad story. Could have done without some gory details.
May 6, 2023
Story line was good, the writing style i struggled with. Wasn't my favorite
May 23, 2015
So boring for me... I thought that Penguin couldn't have bad books, but I made a mistake.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews