Swimming with Jonah [Hardcover]

Audrey Schulman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1999

On a sweltering August morning, Jane Guy steps from an island plane into a strange and dangerous world. The awkward, insecure child of a world-renowned physician and a beautiful Bostonian ballerina, she has come to attend Queen's Medical School on a tiny Indonesian island.

For an exorbitant enrollment fee, Queen's is willing to accept any American child of privilege who has been rejected by all normal medical schools. Not bound by American law, the school specializes in motivating problem students--no matter what the cost to each student. For Jane, given the transgression of her past, Queen's is her last chance.

Surrounded by jungle and sea, Jane is plunged into unrelenting heat and the psychological abuse of the teaching staff. The truest connection she makes on the island is with another student, Keefer. Together they spend their few spare minutes watching as Jonah--a shark that Keefer keeps captive in an ocean pen--slowly circles his cage.

As days extend into weeks, Jane feels herself changing, retreating deeper into a body and spirit she no longer recognizes. And as an aura of desperation deepens among her peers, Jane's determination to succeed grows. Because failure is the only way off the island, and for Jane, it is not an option.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A forlorn but richly compelling character is the protagonist of this beautifully controlled second novel. Jane Guy is the anxious, diffident, overweight daughter of a prominent physician and a famously beautiful ballerina who live in the wealthy community of Greenwich, Conn. Her parents' cold, silent disapproval of her mediocre academic achievements deepens as she is rejected from every medical school she applied to. Her shame and depression persist even as they celebrate her "acceptance" at a medical school on a remote Indonesian island that takes in any student whose parents can afford the outrageous tuition. When Jane leaves conventional suburbia, she enters another world both physically and mentally; the professors at the rigorous and autocratic school behave like drill sergeants, berating the students mercilessly and expelling them at any hint of mischief or incompetence. In the charged and lonely realms of the anatomy lab, the classroom, and the school's one student bar, Jane tries to survive among an uneasy new circle of friends: sultry, smart-mouthed Marlene; calm and competent Michael; Trent, as irresistible as he is blithely cruel; and stuttering, sensitive Keefer, who keeps a shark named Jonah in an ocean pen. Schulman's assured pacing and the subtle portrayal of Jane's alienation, innocence and growing awareness of her needs bring hypnotic tension to the story. The pressured environment and the heat of the island combine in exotic ways to change Jane's consciousness. As she discovers her powerful sexuality, an unusual kinship with her classmates and her new capacity for self-determination, the narrative moves to a stunning conclusion. Schulman's spare prose drives this suspenseful and moving novel with the enigmatic precision of poetry, fulfilling the promise she demonstrated in her debut, The Cage.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A tropical version of The Paper Chase, describing a young womans first year at an Indonesian medical school, by the author of The Cage (1994). Jane Guys father is a man of substance. A Vietnam vet who learned firsthand what happens to the human body under extreme stress, he completed medical school after returning to the States and specialized in anesthesiology, eventually patenting several devices whose royalties made him rich. Jane had always assumed she was going into medicine, that she would try to be like her Dadbut there are problems. To begin with, her grades arent up to standard. Plus, she was caught cheating at college and expelled. As a result, none of the medical schools she applies to will accept herexcept for Queens Medical School, halfway across the globe on an Indonesian island. Queens is one of those offshore places that specializes in picking up US med- school rejects and getting them into the AMA by the side door. Jane is no Vietnam War hero, but shes brave (and driven) enough to put up with almost anything for her degree, so its off to Indonesia. Her arrival isnt exactly propitiousshe trips on the tarmac and dislocates her shoulderand the school isnt quite what she expected, either: Teachers have nicknames like Burn-out, half the buildings are Quonset huts, and the student lounge is a bar on the beach. Meanwhile, Janes roommate Marlene was also expelled from college (for stealing the Deans car), and one of her classmates keeps a pet shark. But, in the best Foreign Legion style, all pull together and look out for one anotheruntil tragedy strikes when Janes best friend turns despondent over his inability to make the grade. By storys end, though, Jane has learned far more about herself than about anatomy, making the year more than worth her efforts. Formulaic, but written brightly, and charmingly sincere. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380976862
• ISBN-13: 978-0380976867
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,675,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I just keep re-reading and re-reading it, February 15, 2002

By 

K Buchanan (Denver, Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Swimming with Jonah (Hardcover)

I checked this book out one summer while on break and working on campus at the University of Denver. I cannot even really explain how it affected me. It is more of a feeling than anything else - I like how Schulman's books make me FEEL when I read them. Since reading Swimming for the first time, I have read The Cage and A House Named Brazil and now own all three. I can only hope to read more of what she has written. This story will touch you in a place you have long forgotten. You will remember your body and your relationships and re-invent them the way that Jane does in the book - Bravo!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars From One Cage To Another, May 15, 1999

By 

Robert Derenthal "bucherwurm" (California United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Swimming with Jonah (Hardcover)

Ms. Schulman's first novel was titled The Cage, which referred to an on the ground, polar bear version of a shark watching cage. In Swimming With Jonah we encounter an underperforming, introverted woman student whose efforts to get in medical school have all but failed. Finally a school on an island in the South Pacific that has been set up just for students who cannot gain admission anywhere else accepts her. This hot, humid island becomes her cage.

While it may be viewed in one sense that our heroine comes out of her shell while attending this demanding school, it also seems that her mental faculties are losing their moorings. It wouldn't seem that having you mind drift off into a surreal world would be symptomatic of good mental health.

In both novels Ms. Schulman creates groups of characters that are all flawed in some way. A reader might often wish that he/she could meet some of the characters met in novels. After reading an AS novel you are likely to say, "Thank God none of those people are my next door neighbors.

Be that as it may the novel is very interesting, and very well written. I do like Ms. Schulman's writing style and eagerly await her next book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Unimaginative and Lacking Detail, May 12, 2000

By 

"kathyatexcitedotcom" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Swimming with Jonah (Paperback)

Jane Guy starts out as a pathetic character that you don't really care about and ends up a slightly different pathetic character that you still don't care about. The story was so beige. There was not enough detail about the surroundings and happenings. None of the characters ever develop much and I felt I only knew them on the surface. I never got to see why they were the way they were. I actually had a love/hate relationship with the author's use of "slow" instead of "slowly" to emphasis just how agonizingly slow things are on most islands and island nations. Each time I saw the improper use, it made me pause and helped me get the feel of just how frustrating a simple thing like slowing things down can be. This could have been a really good story if it were developed much further.