Florence Adler Swims Forever: A Novel

by Rachel Beanland

  Anna recalled the way Florence had looked at her in bed, the night the letter had arrived, and shut her own eyes tight. Florence could have laid claim to them all but there was only one thing she had ever really wanted. Anna opened her eyes. “To swim forever.”

  A tear ran down one of Esther’s cheeks. It hung at the tip of her chin before falling into her lap. Anna wished for more to say but could think of nothing that would do Esther any good. When the silence grew unbearable, she asked, “Will you tell Fannie today?”

  Esther shook her head yes and exhaled slowly, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was about to say. “I have to explain Isaac’s absence, so I assume I’ll do it all in one go.” She nodded toward her bedroom, where Anna assumed Joseph was still asleep. “Joseph will help.”

  “You’ll feel better when you’ve told her. Everything.”

  “Will I?” Esther asked, looking Anna straight in the eyes. “Or will I just feel like Florence is really gone?”

  Anna reached for Esther’s hands across the table. Of course, Esther preferred to imagine her daughter was on a beach in Cape Gris-Nez. It was how Anna liked to think of Florence, too. Standing tall and proud, her arms stretched above her head, watching the water and waiting for a tide generous enough to carry her across the English Channel and all the way to Dover.

  Author’s Note

  The character of Florence Adler is based on a real girl who grew up in Atlantic City. Her name was Florence Lowenthal and she was my great-great-aunt.

  Florence was the fifth of six children. Her parents, Hyman and Anna Lowenthal, ran a jewelry and pawnshop at the corner of Virginia and Atlantic Avenues, and they raised their children—Ruth, Miriam, Grace, Daniel, Florence, and Joseph—in a house at 129 States Avenue.

  Florence swam for the all-female Ambassador Swim Club and graduated from Atlantic City High School in 1926—the same year that Trudy Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel. In her high school yearbook, Florence’s senior quote read, Teach me how to swim, and her probable destination was listed as Swimming the Atlantic. After high school, she swam for the University of Wisconsin, then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania. Her dream was, like Ederle, to conquer the Channel.

  On July 3, 1929, Florence went out for a swim along the coast of Atlantic City. Two lifeguards, “Jing” Johnson and Neil Driscoll, saw her swimming along easily, just past the breakers at States Avenue. Only moments later, they noted that she had stopped moving. The guards deployed a lifeboat immediately, and when they had her back onshore, they rushed her to the Virginia Avenue Hospital Tent, where, for two hours, the chief beach surgeon, two additional doctors, and forty off-duty lifeguards alternated in performing artificial respiration. Florence’s death was the first beach fatality of the summer. She was nineteen years old.

  A front-page story, which included her name, ran in the Atlantic City Daily Press the following day. Reports blamed Florence’s death on the ocean’s cold temperatures but I think it is likely she suffered from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and that her heart simply stopped beating. She was buried on the fourth of July in Egg Harbor’s Beth Kehillah Cemetery.

  My grandmother, Frances Katz, was six years old when she witnessed the Atlantic City Beach Patrol bring her young aunt’s body back to the beach. For the rest of her life, she recalled two things about that day—Florence’s red bathing cap and the echoing sound of her grandmother’s wails as she realized her youngest daughter was dead. With Gussie, I hope I have done justice to both my grandmother and her memories.

  In July of 1929, Frances’s mother, Ruth Lowenthal Katz, was indeed pregnant and in the hospital on bedrest, after losing a baby boy the previous year. Like Esther, Anna Lowenthal made the decision to keep Florence’s death a secret from her daughter. For the remainder of Ruth’s confinement, Anna visited her in the hospital, never letting on that Florence was dead. Ruth’s baby girl, whom she named Hermine, was born on the eighteenth of July, and only then was Ruth told the truth. Several years later, she gave birth to a third daughter, whom she named in her sister’s memory. The story of Anna Lowenthal’s gumption—really, of what we are willing to do to protect the people we love—is a story my family has never let go of.

  That’s as far as the similarities go. Ruth’s husband, Harry Isadore Katz, was no Isaac. He was a devoted father and husband who eventually moved his young family out of their apartment and into a house on Atlantic Avenue. Unlike Joseph, Hyman Lowenthal never got the chance to mourn Florence’s passing; he died the year before his daughter drowned. I hope Florence had a friend like Stuart but I don’t know if she did. And Anna Epstein is a composite of several distant cousins my great-grandparents, Walter and Henrietta Hanstein, brought to the United States in the years leading up to the Holocaust.

  Since this is a work of fiction, I have changed most characters’ names. The exception is Florence, which I have kept as a tribute to Florence Lowenthal. May her name be a blessing.

  Acknowledgments

  I am grateful to so many people who supported me on this journey.

  Carina Guiterman, thank you, first and foremost, for believing in this book. From our very first phone call it was clear that you loved Florence and her family as much as I do. Your edits, insight, and enthusiasm have made the book better in every possible way. To Marysue Rucci for your careful attention, and to Lashanda Anakwah for your work behind the scenes, thank you. I am indebted to Richard Rhorer, Elizabeth Breeden, Jackie Seow, Kassandra Rhoads, Margaret Southard, and so many people at Simon & Schuster for bringing this book to life.

  I’m very lucky to be able to call my agent, Chad Luibl, a friend. For your thoughtful edits and warmhearted advice, and for taking me on this wild ride in the first place, thank you, thank you, thank you. To the entire Janklow & Nesbit team, thanks for rooting for Florence.

  To the faculty and students at Virginia Commonwealth University’s MFA program, and particularly to Tom De Haven, who launched and led the novel-writing workshop where this book was born. Tom, your encouragement made me believe Florence Adler Swims Forever would one day be a real book. Thank you. A special thanks to Matt Cricchio and Jake Branigan, who kept reading in Tom’s garage long after the workshop ended. To Hanna Pylväinen, who generously allowed me to continue working on the manuscript the following year when I should have been writing short stories, and to Clint McCown and Gretchen Comba, who made sure I didn’t get so dreamy-eyed about this project that I forgot to work on the next one. Thom Didato holds a special place in many, many people’s hearts, and I am one of those people. Thanks for not only helping me navigate the program but for serving as an advocate of both me and my work.

  In 2015 I was lucky enough to attend the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, where I studied under Ann Hood. I had brought a creative nonfiction project to the conference but, on a beautiful Vermont afternoon, Ann and I sat in the barn and talked instead about a novel I wanted to write. Did she think I could rotate the story among seven characters, I wanted to know? Could I kill off the title character in the first chapter? I had so many questions. After we had spent an hour discussing the structure of this would-be book, Ann advised me to put everything else I was working on aside. “This is clearly what you’re excited about,” she said. “Go write it.” You can argue that I shouldn’t have needed permission to write this book but I did, and I thank her, again and again, for granting it to me. One day I intend to pay it forward.

  A number of friends and family members read versions of Florence Adler Swims Forever, and the book is better for all their thoughtful comments. Thank you to Beverly Beanland, Ben Hanstein, Bobbie Hanstein, Blair Hurley, Tamsen Kingry, Debra Newman, Jenny Pedraza, Ruthie Peevey, Eve Shade, and Nicole Velez. Rabbi Andrew Goodman is a great friend and a careful editor who ensured I wasn’t fumbling my Jewish prayers or traditions. Kristen Green deserves special thanks for giving me a front-row seat on her own journey to publication. She, more than anyone, showed me that manuscripts can indeed grow up to
be books.

  I was honored to share copies of the manuscript with my mother’s four siblings, all of whom are as invested in Gussie and her well-being as I am. Thanks to Woody Hanstein, Judy Welsh, Joe Hanstein, and Jane Cunniffe for your careful reads and warm praise. A special thank you to Tod Simons for trusting me with this story.

  To the staff and board of the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, but especially to Stefanie Fedor. While I was writing this book, I was lucky enough to work for a fabulous community arts center with an inspiring vision: Art for everyone. Creativity for life. I worked alongside potters, painters, printmakers, and photographers (not to mention writers), and the creative energy I felt in that space and among those people kept me going.

  Thanks to the staff and volunteers at the Atlantic County Historical Society and the Atlantic City Free Public Library. My hearty thanks go out to the staff of the Knife and Fork Inn, who gave me a complete tour of the historic restaurant.

  Growing up, I had several English teachers whose lessons and encouragement stayed with me long after the school year ended. Judy Bandy, Deborah Conrad, Elizabeth Mace, and LuAnn Smouse—thank you.

  My grandparents, Frances and Walter Hanstein, did not live to see this book’s publication. Before my grandmother died, at the age of ninety-four, I told her I was writing a “family drama” set in Atlantic City but I hadn’t grown so bold as to tell her that the drama was inspired by her family. I owe her my deepest gratitude for sharing Florence with me.

  I lost my father, Sam Moyle, to pancreatic cancer almost a decade ago. His absence in my life has been my greatest heartbreak. When he died, I was in my twenties, a young mother still trying to figure myself out, and I wrote my way through those early stages of grief. Even when the fog began to lift, the writing never stopped. In a very real way, this book exists because of him.

  To my mother, Sara Moyle, who has always been my best editor and biggest supporter. She couldn’t have known, as a navy wife raising four young children, that she was turning me into a writer. But, looking back, it’s as if someone had handed her an instruction manual. Read to your kids constantly, take them to libraries and museums and theater, buy them plenty of blank journals, and traipse them through worlds that are not their own. Mom, without you I wouldn’t be here. In more ways than one. For telling me Florence’s story but also for raising little more than an eyebrow when I wanted to write it down, thank you.

  To my siblings—Danny Moyle, Ruthie Peevey, and Eve Shade. It was a privilege growing up with you.

  To my husband, Kevin Beanland, whose support and love has allowed me to pursue this dream. Thank you.

  And lastly, to my children—Gabriel, Clementine, and Florence. You are my joy, my life. Without you, my world wouldn’t be worth writing about.

  About the Author

  © BECCA DUVAL

  Rachel Beanland is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and earned her master of fine arts in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University. She lives with her husband and three children in Richmond, Virginia. Florence Adler Swims Forever is her first novel.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Rachel Beanland

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  First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition July 2020

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-1-9821-3246-0

  ISBN 978-1-9821-3248-4 (ebook)