-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
From Lynn Steger Strong, critically acclaimed author of Flight, a sophisticated and layered novel about sisters, betrayal, love, and climate change, for readers of The Dutch House and The Most Fun We Ever Had.
The Kenner siblings are at odds. Jenn is a harried mom struggling under the weight of family obligations. Fred is a novelist who can't write, maybe because she's lost faith in storytelling itself. Jude is a recovering corporate lawyer with her own story to tell, and a grudge against her former favorite sister, Fred. George, the baby, is estranged from his wife and harboring both a secret about his former employer and an ill-advised crush on one of his sisters' friends. Gathered after a major loss, each sibling needs the others more than ever—if only they could trust each other.
A family story is, of course, only as honest as the person telling it. This family story in particular is fraught with secrets about kids and sex and jobs and why the Kenner matriarch had a gun in her underwear drawer. The biggest secret of all though is the secret of what happened between Jude and Fred to create such a rift between the two once-close middle sisters. Over the course of a sweltering Florida summer, the Kenner siblings will revisit what it means to be a family and, if they are smart and kind and lucky, come out on the other side better for having each other.
A rich exploration of family, ambition, secrets, and love, The Float Test is an elegant and gripping testament to the power that family has to both nurture and destroy us from a critically acclaimed writer working at the top of her craft.
"Not only does the story yield a fascinating meditation on the nature of fiction, but it exhibits profound empathy for each of the characters. This is Strong's best yet." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"An abundance of good writing and interesting storylines and environmental information, but not much to tie it together." —Kirkus Reviews
"With surgical precision, Lynn Steger Strong dissects and then elegantly reconstructs an American family on the brink: of falling apart, of finding themselves, of saying all the things left unsaid. From the collateral damage inevitably caused by artists, to the notion that perhaps we are who we always were, Strong's clear and confident voice and prose makes the unvarnished truths in this book sting. But that same quality makes the moments of profound tenderness and humanity linger. The Float Test—and the Floridian world of this clan—will stay with me for a long time to come." —Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of Anita de Monte Laughs Last
"What I loved most about The Float Test is the sense of place, and how the sticky, dense heat of Florida, the relentless sun, the flat roads ending at the ocean, is woven into the Kenner family's DNA. The adult children of the family—all at crisis points in their own lives—gather on the hot ground of their childhood following their mother's death, where they try to untangle decades of betrayals and sorrow, and reclaim their sense of home." —Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
This information about The Float Test was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Lynn Steger Strong is the author of the novels Flight, Want, and Hold Still. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, Time, Harper's Bazaar, Los Angeles Times, The Paris Review, The Cut , New York Magazine, and elsewhere. She teaches writing at Princeton and Columbia University.
If you liked The Float Test, try these:
by Ann Napolitano
Published 2024
From the New York Times bestselling author of Dear Edward comes a poignant and engrossing family story that asks: Can love make a broken person whole?
by Jane Johnson
Published 2021
A broken family, a house of secrets - an entrancing tale of love and courage set during the Second World War.
by Carolyn Parkhurst
Published 2017
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Dogs of Babel, a taut, emotionally wrenching story of how a seemingly "normal" family could become desperate enough to leave everything behind and move to a "family camp" in New Hampshire - a life-changing experience that alters them forever.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
