Sam

September 26, 2022
A competitive rock climber comes of age at the turn of the 21st century in the bracing latest from Goodman (The Chalk Artist). Sam lives with her financially struggling mom, Courtney, and younger half-brother, Noah, somewhere in New England. She craves the time and attention of her dad, Mitchell, an unreliable traveling performer (juggling, poems on demand, harmonica) who struggles with an unspecified drug addiction. At seven, Sam discovers climbing and devotes herself to the sport, though her natural skill often crumbles under pressure. In high school, Sam is annoyed by Courtney’s constant pressure to go to college, and has to deal with Noah’s rage issues. Meanwhile, an attraction to her climbing coach, Declan, becomes a secret sexual relationship. She quits climbing when the dalliance with Declan implodes, then shuns Mitchell after he returns and claims to be back for good. As high school winds down, Sam faces a tragedy and waffles over whether to go to college or get a job to help Courtney. Sam’s mostly quotidian travails gain heft through Goodman’s perceptiveness, specificity regarding Sam’s emotions, and arresting turns of phrase (“When she heaves herself over the top, she is a castaway collapsing on dry land. Battered, broken, saved”). It’s impressive how much emotional power is packed into this relatively contained story. Agent: Julie Barer, Book Group.

December 1, 2022
A child's-eye view of growing up with a single mom, a troubled dad, and very slim resources. "There is a girl, and her name is Sam. She has a mother named Courtney and a dad who is sort of around, sort of not." Goodman's seventh work of fiction follows her protagonist from ages 7 to 19, using very close third-person narration to limit the story to what is seen and understood by Sam herself. So, for example, what we know about her father's addiction issues or her mother's relationship with a violent but wealthy boyfriend is circumscribed in a way that soon begins to feel frustrating. Also, the tone of the narration seems to age very slowly, with extremely simple sentences and observations persisting as Sam starts high school and begins to get involved with boys. "Sam's mom is a little different. She says, 'Let's be real here.' She takes Sam to Planned Parenthood to get a prescription for the pill. This is because Sam was a surprise, and Courtney never finished her degree." This almost sounds like a picture book about birth control. Sam's main talent and interest is rock climbing, which she first encounters at a fair with her father, and from the start her will to succeed in the sport derives in large part from a craving for his difficult-to-capture attention. When she's in ninth grade, this need will be transferred to a college-age male coach, with problematic results. The sexual aspects and emotional dangers of that relationship are skimmed over with lyrical narration that feels almost coy at this point: "It is strange but magic in his apartment. It is wrong but deli-cious, like all the things not good for you....They are so secret; they are almost secret from themselves, almost dreaming when they lie down together....They steal time--not just hours, but the years between seventeen and twenty-two. They hide those years under their coats, and when they are together they leave those years on the floor with their boots, and socks, and clothes." By glossing over the fact that this is statutory rape and by letting its psychological implications and outcomes go unexplored, Goodman limits the reach of the novel. There isn't enough texture in its treatment of the many serious issues faced by its heroine to satisfy readers.

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December 1, 2022
Goodman (The Chalk Artist, 2017) is acclaimed for her intricately faceted, socially critiquing novels alight with clashing obsessions and ambitions. Here she deftly explores fractured family dynamics and jagged questions of class and vocation with a far more focused approach, creating a mesmerizing first person narration in which language and syntax subtly evolve along with the narrator, Sam, as she grows from a springy seven-year-old to a determined woman in her twenties facing tough choices. Sam's love for her charming but absent and neglectful magician father is shaded by skepticism, while she worries about her hard-working mother and fears the father of her younger half-brother. Sam "likes everything quick" and becomes enthralled by the challenge and escape from the everyday found in competitive rock climbing. This quest steers her to mind-expanding if heart-wounding relationships. As Sam faces the tragic truth about her father, she is tugged between a sense of obligation to help her family and the longing to follow unexpected dreams. Goodman has forged an intimate, nimble, witty, and transfixing drama of skill and effort, responsibility and freedom.

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