Books of the Month

'How to Breathe Underwater' by Julie Orringer

First of all, many thanks to EnCompass reader Christian for suggesting I try How to Breather Underwater. I've enjoyed, and been strangely affected by, Julie Orringer's debut collection of short stories.

Orringer's subject matter, for the most part, is childhood - and the childhood of girls in particular. But there's no trace of the rose-tinted glasses here: these stories, more than any I think I have read, bring back the awkwardness, confusion and cruelties of being young. I actually found some of them quite painful to read. Many are told from the perspective of a child who considers herself, for whatever reason, an outsider. She's the wrong religion, speaks with the wrong accent, dresses the wrong way or has the wrong kind of mother. She's either friendless, or forced to be friends with someone she doesn't really like. In 'Pilgrims' Ella and her younger brother witness a shocking event when a children's game goes horribly wrong. And in 'What We Save' Helena struggles to understand what's happening to her sick mother, while fending off the unsavoury advances of the young sons of her mum's own childhood boyfriend.

In most of the stories though, the central characters prove themselves able to come through these trials. In 'The Isabel Fish' - oneof the collection's highlights - the narrator's capacity for forgiveness is what enables her both to salvage a damaged relationship with her older brother, and to start getting over the trauma of an accident. In 'Stars of Motown Shining Bright', a quiet, sensible girl eventually proves herself both smarter and braver than her supposedly streetwise friend - and in the process succeeds brilliantly in dealing with the boy who has taken advantage of both of them. And in 'The Smoothest Way is Full of Stones', a girl sent to stay with orthodox Jewish relatives, who finds herself caught between the strictness of religious rules and the bloom of sexual curiosity, manages finally to assert her own identity.

It's to Orringer's credit that she manages to draw her characters so deftly, and believably, and that the collection's themes - of religion, growing up, parental sickness, family relationships, and female friendships - emerge sensitively through the narrative. There isn't a story here that I wouldn't read again for its style and good writing - even if their accurate depictions of teenage life often left me feeling less than comfortable.

If you try the book and enjoy it, you might be interested to check out the genesis of some of Orringer's stories via some virtual extracts from her notebooks.

Susan Tranter

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