author Glenn Stout
NOW AVAILABLE!
Read an excerpt:
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/books/hmh-ems/Young_Woman_and_the_Sea_Prologue.pdf
Listen to an interview:
http://www.hereandnow.org/2009/09/young-woman-the-sea/
“Young Woman & the Sea is the story of Trudy Ederle’s epic swim across the English Channel interwoven with a sweeping and glimmering history of swimming. These were the good old days when open water swimmers were sex symbols, pioneers of the sports, and leaders of social change. For anyone who loves the water, or has a big dream - this is the book to read.”
- Lynne Cox, author of Swimming to Antarctica and Grayson.
In 1926, 18-year-old Trudy Ederle fascinated and inspired millions around the world when she became the first woman successfully to swim the English Channel. With great storytelling, sportswriter Stout (series editor of The Best American Sports Writing) chronicles Ederle’s singular accomplishment and its significance for the future of women in sports as well as the tremendous challenges for any swimmer who would dare traverse the waves of the channel. At age five, Ederle (1908-2003) suffered permanent hearing loss, which made her reticent and shy; at age 10 her father taught her to swim. The ocean opened to her like another world, and she loved the feeling of floating and swimming in its vastness. After lessons at the Women’s Swimming Association, Ederle developed her gift and emerged as one of America’s fastest swimmers, earning a spot in the 1924 Olympics. Disappointed by winning only a bronze medal, she quickly turned to the challenge of swimming the English Channel-difficult due to its strong tides, winds and currents-and after an initial failure, Ederle conquered the channel on August 6, 1926. Stout’s moving book recovers the exhilarating story of a young girl who found her true self out in the water and paved the way for women in sports today. -Starred Review, Publisher’s Weekly
“Even before she swam the English Channel in 1926, Gertrude Ederle was a Roaring 20s celebrity: Olympic gold medalist, world-record holder and renowned distance swimmer. But becoming the first woman to conquer the Channel made her an icon, and Glenn Stout brings the women’s sports pioneer back to life with an engaging, deeply researched account.” - Sports Illustrated
”A great summer read…is “Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World,” by Glenn Stout… The book swishes around like the tide, from the history of swimming (especially women’s swimming and the development of the American crawl) to the conditions that created the English Channel-”some of the roughest and most unpredictable waters in the world”-and its legendary conquerors.” - The New Yorker
“You need not care one whit about swimming, women breaking sports barriers or events of the 1920s to be gripped by sportswriter Glenn Stout’s fast-paced account of how, in 1926, a partially deaf, 19-year-old New Yorker became the first woman to swim the English Channel… The descriptions of the interaction between Trudy and her crew, Mr. Burgess’ plotting of the Z-shape route, the almost hourly press dispatches sent, the hazards Trudy overcame as the storms came, the swells grew and the tide changed earlier than expected are breathtaking.” -The Washington Times
“Stout adeptly traces the history of swimming and Ederle’s significance in it. Whether recounting the origins of modern strokes or the geological formation of the English Channel, the author is comprehensive in his research. His blow-by-blow accounts of Ederle’s two attempts to cross from Cape Gris-Nez, France to Dover, England, demonstrate his engaging style… saturated with thrills and melodrama. A compelling account of a woman who, though long forgotten, changed the way the world viewed swimming.” -Kirkus Reviews
“In the thick of the storm, when deep ocean swells made it hard for the panicked folks on the tugboat to keep Ederle in sight and they wanted her to quit, someone shouted at her: “Come on out, girl!” Ederle, lost in her partial deafness and in the joy of swimming, took a while to respond. According to those aboard, she looked up, eventually smiled and shouted back: “What for?” It may have only been a fleeting moment, but the way Stout tells it, it just may have been the best moment of Gertrude Ederle’s life.”-Maureen Corrigan, “Books We Like” on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air”
“Too often, looking at America through its sports, and vice versa, results in a distorted view of both of them. In Glenn Stout’s account of Trudy Ederle and the English Channel, we have a clear and honest mirror. A first-rate piece of social history, and a tale told, well, swimmingly.
- Charles P. Pierce, author of Idiot America: How Stupidity Became A Virtue In The Land Of The Free.
Selected by the Wall Street Journal as a “BEST SUMMER READ” of 2009, one of only five non-fiction titles to make the list.
See the Book Trailer on YouTube:
1 comment so far ↓
Glenn,
First, I was so excited when you stopped by my blog and left a comment on my post about “Young Woman.” I wanted you to know I finished the book this morning and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I liked the way, in the early chapters, you alternated between telling about Trudy and telling about swimming history, etc.
I loved the way you described Trudy’s successful swim - the writing style made me feel just a bit of how she must have when she was undertaking such a huge swim. I enjoyed reading in the notes that you had spent a lot of time in the water as well, trying to get to a similar “place.”
Thanks for introducing me to someone who I had never heard of before, and for telling her story so well. Cheers!
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