Off the Deep End (Hardcover)

~ W. Hodding Carter (Author)
Key Phrases: race club, power rack, aquatics director, Nodding Carter, Hodding Carter, Mike Schmidt (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“So well-written that even non-swimmers will enjoy reading about Carter’s Olympic quest.”—Kirkus Reviews (Kirkus Reviews )

"Funny and self-deprecating and sweetly engaging."—National Geographic Adventure (National Geographic Review )

"Mr. Carter's voice is so infectiously charming and innocent, and the prose is so affable, even the hardships sound fun."—The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore Sun )

Funny and self-deprecating and sweetly engaging.National Geographic Adventure (National Geographic Review )

Mr. Carter's voice is so infectiously charming and innocent, and the prose is so affable, even the hardships sound fun.The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore Sun )

So well-written that even non-swimmers will enjoy reading about Carters Olympic quest.Kirkus Reviews (Kirkus Reviews )

Review

"Off the Deep End is hilarious and insightful. It's far more than a book about swimming. Carter's story will inspire people to go for their dreams at any age, and you can never get enough of that. I love this book!"
—Lynne Cox, author of Swimming to Antarctica and Grayson

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 209 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books (June 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565125649
• ISBN-13: 978-1565125643
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #237,562 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #39 in	Books > Sports > Miscellaneous > Olympic Games
  #71 in	Books > Sports > Water Sports > Swimming

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Swimming through -- or into -- midlife crisis., June 26, 2008

By	Kevin Quinley "GeezerJock" (Fairfax, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Author Hodding Carter, sunk in the middle ages, takes up the quixotic quest to regain his old collegiate swimming form and qualify for the 2008 Olympics. To do so, he puts much of his life on hold to chase his dream and regain the speed he had as a collegiate at Kenyon College. This is either an act or audacious bravery or audacious selfishness. With four kids and a working wife, Carter's preoccupation is on none of them but rather on his long-shot quest. He pulls in very little money as a freelance writer but battles with age to regain his swimming form.

In the end, you do not know whether he succeeded or not in qualifying for the Olympic team. (I doubt it...) Viewing his story is like rubbernecking after a car wreck. You don't want to look but you just can't help yourself.

Is he swimming toward the Olympics or simply swimming away from the realization that we get older and certain physical limitations are imposed, limitations that can be minimized and managed but not totally transcended. Is he swimming against the notion of death and seeking some fountain of youth to regain lost youth through swimming? One wit once said, "The older I get, the better I was."

Anyone who has set - or thought about setting - big hairy audacious goals will enjoy Carter's book and the self-revelatory candor that he packs inside. I'm rooting for his wife, his kids and his family. They don't give gold medals for devotion to family, but the achievement doesn't lose its luster.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent and inspiring, July 1, 2008

By	cxlxmx - See all my reviews

When I ordered this book, I was expecting sort of a literary reflection on swimming, discussing the experience of endless laps in ponderous prose. Of course, I forgot my experience of champion swimmers (driven, sometimes eccentric, sometimes manic, but not usually introspective). Actually, the book is more like a series of short stories about some interesting events in the course of the author's life over the last few years.

In the course of reading, you get some nice introductions to modern thinking about swimming training and technique and some introductions to personalities in masters swimming and Olympians. Like the author, my only image of Mark Spitz growing up was the golden boy. Quite an eye-opener here!

If you've enjoyed competitive swimming in your own past but have not kept up with the swimming world, I can say with certainty that you will like this book. If you haven't been a swimmer before, you can still enjoy it, as you don't need a lot of technical understanding to follow the stories.

The fact that the book is written for and was released at just the right time to make a financial windfall in case the author qualifies for the 2008 Beijing Olympic trials is a little off-putting, but it doesn't really detract from the quality or the inherent interest of the vignettes.

BTW, my sense is that the reviewer Geezerjock below just skimmed the book and missed the more important stories about the author beating his previous best times set when he was decades younger. In the future, when they have made more anti-aging technological breakthroughs, I think this book will be able to seen as a chronicle of someone living on the cusp of human transformation. The book does not make you cringe at every turn.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charming and intelligent!, August 2, 2008

By	Nicole Leonard (Boise, Idaho USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a wonderful read! It is well-written, intelligent, and funny. I agree that this is a great read for Masters swimmers but also think it is a great read for any middle-aged person who decides that life is not on that downhill slide but rather that we can still accomplish tremendous things. Its about the joy of setting goals and then experiencing the day-to-day effort of working towards those goals - having a direction that is exciting.

I have been really inspired by Dara Torres making the Olympic Team at 41 - I know a lot of people have also been inspired by her performance. What is more interesting to me is that I am also inspired by Hodding Carter and his efforts to make the Olympics - he didn't make them but his journey and where he ended up are really something. Well done!