[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] -Welcome, I'm Rose Martin, and we are Write Around The Corner at the Graduate Hotel in Richmond on the top of the roof.

And you'll find out why in a minute.

We're here with a debut novelist, Rachel Beanland.

And her book Florence Adler Swims Forever is a fabulous read.

It takes us on a journey, an emotional journey of tragedy, triumph, the Adler family, and so many secrets.

When is enough?

Let's meet her.

Rachel, thank you for joining us.

-Thank you for having me.

-So, it's wonderful, the location that we are.

Why do you think it's so fitting for your book?

-Well, one of my very favorite scenes in my book takes place at a hotel swimming pool.

So, I think it's very fitting that you chose this as a location.

-Oh, well, we're excited about it.

And you have a little bit of a background as a lifeguard yourself, right?

-I do, I do.

I do.

-Okay.

-I lifeguarded for three summers in high school.

And I do like to joke that it was my favorite career.

I maybe enjoyed it more than being a novelist.

I don't know.

-Oh, wow.

Okay.

-I really loved being a lifeguard when I was in high school.

-Well, and your debut book is absolutely beautiful.

And we'll get to that in a minute.

But I want people to have a chance to get to know you.

So, you just finished graduate school, right?

From VCU locally.

What other things have you been doing?

-Yeah.

So...

I've been out of college about 15 years.

I was working in public relations and non-profit management while writing a novel on the side.

I've always been writing something on the side.

I've always loved to write and read.

And, you know, after I graduated from college, I would kind of play with one thing or another.

But I would say that in my kind of early 30s, I started getting really serious about trying to write, you know, something that would be meaningful and, you know, have some staying power.

And I started this book in the fall of 2016 while working as the deputy director at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, which is a wonderful community arts organization here in town.

I was taking classes part-time at Virginia Commonwealth University in their MFA Program, and in fact, enrolled in an amazing novel-writing workshop that Tom De Haven runs.

Well, he doesn't run it anymore.

He's retired, but at the time, he was running it.

And I also have three kids.

So, they keep me really busy.

So, I'm always really busy.

-That's more than one career right there.

Three kids, married, working a full-time job, and then deciding, "You know what, I think I'm gonna write a novel."

-I know, I know.

Yeah, I had to squeeze it in where I could.

But things are a little bit simpler now and also a little more complicated.

-How about as a child?

Writing as part of your family background, or just you kind of knowing, I've got to get this down on paper?

-You know, I think the reading came first.

And I was always, you know, a great reader.

I read a lot of different kinds of books.

I would read my mother's books.

I was always kind of looking around for new material.

And my parents were both big readers, so that was extremely helpful.

I think the writing came naturally out of the reading.

But I also, when I look back, I do think that one of the things that helped me kind of develop my craft and maybe the ability to just look at characters and create characters, was the fact that my father was in the military and we moved around a ton.

-Are you saying you met a lot of characters?

-I met a lot of characters.

I met a lot of characters.

We lived abroad several times.

We moved, you know, both coasts on the United States.

And so, that was my whole childhood.

It was kind of going into new situations.

Trying to figure out who was who.

And I think that that also played a role in kind of sending me down this path.

-And then also, growing up, there were stories.

Family stories that were something that always kind of resonated, right?

I mean, families have histories and they share stories, but you had a particular story.

-I did.

I did.

So, my mother, when I was growing up, she used to always tell me the story of my great-- great aunt Florence Lowenthal, who had been training to swim the English Channel when she drowned off the coast of Atlantic City.

Her drowning occurred in 1929, in the summer of 1929.

And my grandmother was on the beach that day.

She vividly remembered the day that her aunt's body was brought back up onto the beach.

And that story became one that my grandmother didn't talk about much, but my mother would tell it to me.

Not so much, you know, when I was growing up in the '80s and '90s.

It wasn't so much that... the story had kind of shifted at that point.

There was obviously a tremendous sorrow around losing Florence.

But her death had happened at that point, you know, 60 years in the past.

The emphasis of the story, at that point, really shifted, and was on my great-great grandmother, Esther in the book, who was this kind of very strong matriarch and made the decision that summer not to tell her other daughter, Fannie in the book, that Florence had died.

Fannie was in the hospital, on bed rest, she had lost a baby the previous summer.

And the family decided that it would just be too risky for her to get such sad news.

-I can't even imagine what that would be like.

-Yeah.

I mean, I-- -Or for her to deal with losing a child, right?

A daughter.

Because your... Florence was young.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

She was just 19 when she died.

And her sister was older.

Her sister already had a daughter, my grandmother.

And so, she was in the hospital, and they really just didn't think it would be safe for her to find out this information.

I, as a kid and a teenager, you know, even a young adult, you think you know everything.

And I just can remember really questioning the fact that the women in my family felt so strongly that Esther had made the right decision.

I thought, "Well, what if Fannie had wanted to know that her sister, you know, was gone?"

And I'm using the book's, the names from the book, because it's just-- it's easier for everyone.

-Yeah, and we'll get to those characters in a minute.

But I'm glad you're laying it out for all of the viewers, so that then they can see that you had this story growing up.

And then, how that went into the process of creating such a beautiful book.

-Yeah.

So, I, you know, it was very clear when I was growing up that the women in my family believed that Esther had made the right decision in keeping this piece of tragic news from her surviving daughter.

-Do you think she was even questioned on that decision since she was the matriarch?

-I don't think she questioned it.

I don't know if she was questioned by others.

I certainly imagined a world in which she might've been questioned.

And so, as I began to think about writing a novel, it's... this story kind of wouldn't leave me alone because for me, it wasn't one that had easy answers.

You know, my mother and my grandmother, and maybe my aunts, had these kind of strong opinions about the fact that Esther had made this very good decision.

And I felt like I was on the opposite end.

I thought, "You know, well, wait.

Maybe this wasn't the right call at all."

And so, the fact that there was this gray area to explore, told me that I probably had the makings of a decent novel.

-Well, and it is more than a decent novel.

It's amazing.

-Thank you.

-So, you know, I'm curious because that kind of removing decision-making in our time now, it would almost be unheard of, right?

That, "What do you mean, you wouldn't tell me?

-Right.

ROSE: To let me decide."

-Right.

ROSE: You know?

So... That also goes back to the time period, right?

So, we're looking at the 1930s, and her as a matriarch.

So, you've got this great idea and you're thinking, "This is a family story.

I'm gonna write a novel."

-Mm-hmm.

-What happens next?

-Well, I did some research.

I did a good bit of research.

You know, I didn't know a tremendous amount about the real story.

I knew, you know, what little my mother had told me.

I usually heard the story secondhand.

Like my grandmother didn't like to talk about it as much when I was young.

It was my mother who would tell the story.

So, I only had the very bare bones.

And as I got older, I would sometimes ask my grandmother about it if it came up in conversation, or you know, there was a way to talk about it.

-Was that a taboo that you didn't talk about things, the bad things that had happened?

-I think the older generation, for sure, didn't.

-Okay.

-And that was what I saw was that my grandmother would talk about it occasionally.

Her mother talked about it, never.

I mean, so you know, people will sometimes ask, you know, "What was the reaction, you know, after Florence's death?

Or what was the reaction--?"

And the answer is like, "They did not talk about it."

It was just too tragic and too painful.

And so, I think as my grandmother grew older and maybe, you know, entered the end of her life, she had a desire to tell the story because she wanted to see it maybe continue.

To see Florence's name, you know, passed down.

And my mother was certainly always interested in the story, I think.

I mean, you know, I was interested enough that when my mother would tell me the story, I would ask questions.

-Sure.

-And we kinda continued that process for many years.

But-- so, when I was starting to think about the book, I did as much research as I could.

I talked to my grandmother.

I, you know, found what I could, you know, in archives, and, you know, in the library.

And there was a small newspaper article about her death.

Or, you know, little things that I could get my hands on.

-Was it true that there were no pictures left?

-There were no pictures.

We had a few pictures of Florence when she was a baby that I think probably had already been distributed to other people by the time she died.

And so, those ones were saved.

But the family story goes that after her death, her mother was so distraught, she never said her name again and she destroyed her photographs.

-Oh, that's breaks my heart.

-She just wanted like a clean break.

And I think that that is probably more representative of that era, and the kind of the stiff upper lip than we're used to experiencing today.

So, I had a little bit of research, you know.

I knew some things, but I definitely gave myself permission to fictionalize whatever I wanted to fictionalize.

You know, I was interested, first and foremost, I mean, I wanted to honor Florence Lowenthal's story, but I also just wanted to write a good novel.

And so, I, you know, I did give myself complete permission, you know, to do that.

-So, what was the process like?

-Let's see.

I started reading and researching in the fall of 2015.

I read a lot about Trudy Ederle, for instance, the first woman to swim the English Channel.

-True she made her own bathing suits?

-Yes, she did.

-Okay.

-Because, I mean, at that time, she just couldn't find good ones.

You know, I mean, there weren't women athletes just sitting around with, you know... -Exactly.

-Great gear... didn't exist.

She also made her own goggles.

ROSE: Wow.

-Which is amazing.

But, so...

I did a lot of reading about her.

I did a lot of reading about Atlantic City during that era.

Atlantic City is a fascinating place in that time period, the '30s.

I mean, just... you know, it was really America's playground.

-Well, and everything was booming.

-Yeah.

-Right?

It was like... immigration, and everything was booming.

It was a start.

-Yes, yes.

Atlantic City was a really fascinating place at that time.

Was experiencing tremendous growth.

Had become a real Jewish enclave as Jewish immigrants came over from Europe.

And so, I was able to do a lot of research about the town.

And, you know, I had postcards, and all kinds of souvenirs, and a [indistinct] that I could find online.

-And you're reading lifeguard manuals... -Yeah.

I'm reading all kinds of-- -And how to do a bakery.

-Yeah.

No, I...

I read, some of the books I read were kind of absurd.

But they worked for me.

ROSE: Sure.

-And so, I did a lot of research.

And I continued to do research throughout the process of writing of the book.

But, by the fall of 2016, I felt ready to, you know, move forward and start writing the book.

I wrote about the first 150 pages in the novel-writing workshop that we discussed.

And that was a wonderful way to start because I had a little bit of feedback from these people in the program who were able to say things to me like, you know, "Rachel, maybe you shouldn't have a 30-page prologue."

-Well, and that's got to be kind of hard, right?

Because this is your baby that you're kinda sharing.

So, there has to be a little bit of that, you know, stiff upper lip from your generation, from your parents, right?

Or be like, "Okay, I can take it."

-Yeah.

-I know it's gonna get better.

I can take the criticism.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The criticism I found very helpful.

ROSE: Good.

-And the, you know, what a workshop can do for you is it can keep you from going so far down a path that, you know, eventually would I have figured out I didn't need a 30-page prologue from Florence's perspective?

-Yeah.

Right.

-Yes.

But it would have, it saved me a lot of time that I was able to figure that out so soon.

-So, talk about time.

You were actually very regimented.

-Very regimented.

ROSE: In taking this as a job.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

-And I think that's great for people to hear how you structured your day.

-I wrote the book from 4:30 to 7:00 in the morning, seven days a week, because it was-- -Vacation, too, right?

-Yeah.

Oh, God, every day.

Because it was the only time I could fit it in.

I mean, you know, I was a working mom and there just was not a lot of free time.

And so, I did that, and it took me about two years.

And I can really calculate the hours, almost, you know.

ROSE: That's amazing.

-If you wanna know how many hours it took to write the book, it's like I could do the math.

Because, my time was that regimented.

-So, outside of writing for those certain hours, how else did you organize the content, the characters, where you were going?

-I had a few techniques up my sleeve.

You know, when I began, I began with just a really simple Word document that outlined each character.

I wrote maybe a couple paragraphs about them.

Sometimes just one, you know, with a little bit about their background.

And the question that I wanted to answer for every character was, what do they want, you know?

What's the thing that's driving them through the course of the novel?

And then, as I moved further into the book, you know, I realized I was writing from seven points of view.

I had these seven characters.

-Which is amazing.

-Thank you.

-That there are seven voices that are so easy to transition between.

-Thank you.

Thank you.

I enjoy that.

Like, you know, I didn't know that I...

I was nervous about that.

You know, writing from that many points of view.

And I can remember sitting down with Ann Hood at a writing conference in Vermont, Bread Loaf, if you're familiar with it, and, you know, asking her, "Can I do this?

Like I'm a first-time novelist.

Like, can I... can I do seven points of view?"

And I had read Angela Flournoy's The Turner House that summer.

So, I knew like, okay, well, she did 12.

Like... -I can do this.

-I can do this.

-Yeah.

-But, you know, she used a couple different techniques that I didn't use.

It's tricky, of course, anything's tricky.

I mean, writing a novel is hard.

-One of the things I think our viewers and your readers will pick up on, and we're not gonna give it away, is to see how you actually balanced those seven characters throughout the course of this book.

And our astute readers and viewers are gonna pick that up right away.

-Yeah.

I did have some techniques up my sleeve.

And one of the things that I had to do, once it kind of got rolling and I realized, "Okay, I've got seven points of view.

I'm rotating," was I actually developed an Excel spreadsheet, which doesn't sound very sexy, but I had my kind of months, it takes place over June, July, and August of 1934.

I had my characters.

And I would kind of try to make sure that their story lines were threaded throughout the whole book, you know.

Because there were...

I did run the risk with so many characters, of realizing-- -Thousand-page book, yeah.

-Well, or just realizing, "Ha, I've written a hundred pages and I haven't dipped back into Isaac's story line."

ROSE: Yeah.

-Or something.

So...

So, that kept me honest.

And, yeah, the Excel spreadsheet helped.

I had this Word document.

I mean, I had tons and tons of notes and composition books full of research.

-Who did you let read it?

-Well, aside from the workshop, no one really read it while I was working on it.

-Did your grandma know?

-My grandmother... that's a whole... hold on, I'll answer the first question, and then I'll come back to my grandmother.

'Cause I can go to my grandmother for a good bit.

What I did as far as readers was, I waited until I had a pretty decent first draft.

My agent read it.

I mean, he wasn't my agent yet, but he was someone I knew through VCU's Program, Chad Luibl, he's amazing.

And, he'd graduated five years before me.

And my professor had set us up, and said, you know, "Chad, you have to read this."

And so, he read it, I guess in August of 2018.

And so, we were talking all that fall.

And then, around Labor Day of that year, I had a good enough draft that I was like, okay, I'm gonna give it to my mom.

-Okay.

She was the first one.

-So, yeah.

I gave it to my mom and a couple of girlfriends.

And I wanted someone who could read it from start to finish, you know.

Because the people in the workshop had read it in such small doses that it's a little hard to give cohesive feedback.

And so, what I did was, I gave it to my mom and I said, "Mom, here it is.

It's fiction."

-Right.

Because she's like, "You're gonna recognize some people.

You're gonna recognize some stories, and fiction."

Yeah, I bet because the characters, she'd probably be thinking, you know, "Are you sure, Rachel?

Did-- is--" -Right.

Right, right.

-You know, yeah.

I get that.

So, I had to kind of emphasize the fact that it was fiction.

ROSE: Yeah.

-And she said, it took her about two-thirds of the way through the novel to figure out that-- like to let go of her family members.

And then, when she did that, she said, you know, she was able to read the rest of the book as a novel, and she loved it.

-Okay.

So, I have to know about Gussie.

I absolutely loved her.

And she was your favorite to write?

-I loved writing her.

-Okay.

-Of course, she's modeled on my grandmother.

So, you know, I had a deep connection to her from the start.

I also think there's something so fun about writing children in fiction.

-Which is tough.

-They're tough to write.

And a lot of people have kind of mixed feelings about them being there because, of course, they don't process things in the same way that adults do.

But I think that that can be a real gift when you're writing fiction because they don't process things the same way that adults do.

-And they can say whatever you want them to say, right?

-They say whatever... they can interpret things but interpret them slightly off, you know, in ways that can be highly entertaining.

So, I just...

I had a good time with Gussie.

And of course, she was made all the more special by the fact that she was modeled after my grandmother.

-So, let's get to the book.

And be able to share with people this amazing story of Florence.

And you've already let us know that she was on the beach and training for a race at the English Channel.

But Florence, while she's a main character in the book, and she gets the honor of the title, there are so many other characters that tell this story, Rachel.

Who are they?

-So, this is a story that despite being called Florence Adler Swims Forever, is not really a book about Florence.

It's a book about what happens to her family after she dies.

She is an incredible swimmer.

You know, as you said, she's training to swim the English Channel when she drowns very early in the novel.

It's not giving anything away.

It's on the flap.

And the people who are left behind are her mother and father, Esther and Joseph, you know, matriarch and patriarch of this family.

Her sister, Fannie, who is pregnant in the hospital on bed rest.

Fannie is married to a man named Isaac, who people have strong opinions about, one way or the other.

-Include me, too.

-Right.

And... and then, Isaac and Fannie have a daughter, Gussie, who is a witness that day on the beach, and who kinda becomes a witness to the entire summer.

And then, there are two people who are not members of the Adler family.

There's Anna who comes over from Germany.

She is an immigrant; she comes on a student visa.

And she's somehow connected to Joseph's past, and we're not entirely sure how.

And then, there's Stuart, who is a lifeguard.

-Adorable.

-He is an adorable lifeguard at the Atlantic City beach, with the Atlantic City Beach Patrol.

And he's the only non-Jewish character in the book, of the seven.

And he, between him and Anna, you know, I think they're both able to see the Adlers from a different perspective, you know.

Able to kinda look inside from without, and make some judgment calls that the family itself is too close to be able to make, so... -And they forge a friendship, which is one of the reasons we're at this beautiful pool, not just because of the swimming, but because they forge a friendship, and there are some scenes that deal with swimming.

-Yes.

Stuart is the heir to a hotel on, you know, the Boardwalk in Atlantic City.

It's a hotel that doesn't serve Jewish guests.

And, you know, Stuart has never been one to kinda follow his father's advice or guidance.

It's one of the reasons he has not gone into business with his father.

And so, it's very fitting that he, you know, is teaching Anna to swim and kinda making these memories with her at the hotel.

-Would it be a true statement that every character has a secret?

-I intentionally did create a cast of characters that were all keeping secrets.

I was interested in this idea of secret keeping for other people's benefit because that was really at the heart of, you know, why Esther had kept the secret from Fannie.

It was what my mother and her family was kinda so impressed with, was this idea that you would hold on to this information for the sake of someone you loved.

And so, I wanted to explore that more fully.

And so, I started building out the book knowing that I would have these women, you know, as part of the story.

I mean, I always knew I had to have Florence, but I had to have Fannie in the hospital bed.

I had to have her mother who was calling all the shots.

And, of course, I needed Gussie because I just, you know, care so deeply about my grandmother.

But then, as I started to kinda build out what these women's lives looked like, and who was interacting with them, and how the family dynamic kind of went, I quickly, you know, added characters who could complement these women in some way, but who also could kind of help me explore this idea of keeping secrets for other people's benefit.

That was what I was interested in.

-And I love that, that you just said that.

Keeping secrets for other people's benefit.

Almost like it's sacrificial and in a way protective.

-Yeah, yeah.

And I was very interested.

I mean, you know, Esther spearheaded the secret-keeping, you know, the decision to keep a secret from Fannie, at great personal expense to herself.

You know, because of course, if you're keeping a secret like this, you can't grieve properly.

-Well, let's not keep a secret for some of the things that are inside this book.

Would you be willing to read for us?

-Sure.

Absolutely.

-All right.

What did you select?

-I'm gonna read just the first page or so of the book.

Which begins with Gussie, which seems fitting.

And kinda introduces you to Florence and just the beach, and a little bit about that first day.

"Gussie Feldman didn't enjoy swimming, "but she did like to lie on the wet sand, "in the shadow of Atlantic City's steel pier "and wait for the tiniest ripple of a wave "to wash over her.

"If she positioned herself just so, "her body rose with the incoming tide, "and for a brief moment, she felt weightless.

"She was lying in just such a manner, "staring up at the bright blue sky, "when her Aunt Florence's face came in to her field of vision.

"'I discovered a lovely note when I arrived home.'

"Florence said.

"'I want to give my compliments to the artist.'

"Gussie grinned.

"She had devoted more than a quarter of an hour "to writing the note, "which she'd carefully positioned on the oriental rug "in the entry way of her grandparents' apartment, "where Florence would be sure to see it.

"With her colored pencil, "she'd written in big purple letters, "'Dear Florence and Anna, we are at the beach.

"Come have fun, Love, Gussie.'

"At the last minute, "she decided she'd not used enough exclamation marks, "so she added three more after Florence's name, "but stopped short of allocating any to Anna.

"Maybe, if her grandparents' house guest noticed "she hadn't been awarded any, "she'd decide to stay at the apartment.

"'Do you want to be a mermaid?'

Gussie asked Florence now, "hoping to capitalize on her aunt's good mood.

"Sometimes, if Gussie asked sweetly, "Florence would cross her legs at the ankles "and pretend the two of them were Mer people, "out for a swim around the Tongan Islands, "which Gussie had read about in her picture book, Fairy Tales of the South Seas .

"'For a few minutes.

Then I'm going to go out for a swim.'"

And I'll just end there.

-That's such a tender scene to pick.

Because it tells so much of the story, even about the relationship, and the closeness of the relationship.

But yet, you're setting us up with how important the water was, and how that's going to just roll through the rest of the pages.

Gosh, Rachel, we could talk forever about this book and about so many of the wonderful things that you brought in from the Jewish heritage to the character development, to so much more.

So, we're gonna continue our conversation.

I thank you so much.

-Thank you for having me.

ROSE: Oh, absolutely.

So, I want to just tell everyone to make sure that the book is Florence Adler Swims Forever .

We wanna do a special thanks to Rachel Beanland on this debut novel.

We can't wait to see what's gonna come from her next because I know I will be reading it, and I want you to make sure that you do, too.

Also, special thanks to all of the folks here at the Graduate Hotel in Richmond for lending us this beautiful rooftop pool for our setting to share Rachel's book Florence Adler Swims Forever .

Make sure that you check out more of our conversation online, and tell your friends about us.

I would sure be grateful.

I'm Rose Martin, and I'll see you next time, Write Around The Corner .

[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day every day every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ ♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ ♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪