This week at the Gilpin Library
by Larry Grieco, Librarian
A couple of debut novels about young women coming of age highlight this week’s column. In The First Rule of Swimming, by Courtney Angela Brkic, we have the story of two sisters from Rosmarina, an isolated island off of Croatia. Jadranka, the younger sister, is a free spirit who often disappears, testing the limits of her boundaries. When she is gone again, and weeks pass by, her older sister, Magdalena, realizes she has to set out to find her. Her search takes her to New York City. There she finds not only an America unlike what she expected, but discovers “a dark history of secrets and half-truths stretching through three generations of her family.” The novel reveals a number of stories, as it moves back and forth in time and across continents. Author Daphne Kalotay: “Brkic seamlessly negotiates past and present, silence and secrets, to reveal one family’s enduring love – as profound and as perilous as the sea surrounding their island home. With beautiful images and characters that are vividly real, this novel is a delicately written work of art, about history and memories and the grief at their fading and loss.”
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