Swimming across the Hudson [Hardcover]

Joshua Henkin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 14, 1997

Living in San Francisco with his girlfriend and her daughter, Ben Suskind finds his life thrown into upheaval when he receives a letter from a woman claiming to be his birth mother and embarks on a painful, secret quest to find out the truth about his past. A first novel.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"When you're adopted, everything's contingent." So says Ben Suskind, the narrator of Joshua Henkin's debut novel, Swimming Across the Hudson. Ben knows what he's talking about: the sons of different birth mothers, he and his brother Jonathan were both adopted by Orthodox Jewish parents and brought up on Manhattan's Upper West Side in a religious/intellectual/political hothouse that left them gasping for air and the opportunity to figure themselves out. For Ben, claiming an identity means meeting his birth mother, an event that is both shocking--she informs him he wasn't born a Jew--and depressing--he's bored by her. For Jonathan, it means admitting his homosexuality to his family.

Exploring serious issues of identity, family, and where you turn when the chips are down, Swimming Across the Hudson is filled with perceptive insights and told in quiet, fluid prose. This auspicious first novel augurs well for Joshua Henkin.

From Library Journal

This first novel is so filled with family dynamics it almost bursts. Two adopted brothers, Ben and Jonathan Suskind, raised in New York City by loving and observant Jewish intellectual parents, are now just past 30 and living in San Francisco. Narrator Ben is unsettled about all sorts of issues: his Jewishness (he is living with a Gentile and her daughter), his career as a high school teacher, and his identity. So when he receives a letter from his birth mother, he decides to meet her and sort through his past. Jonathan, a gay physician, has no such troubles. As Ben unravels much of his adoptive family's secrets, his birth mother's past, and then the identity Jonathan's birth mother (whom he seeks out surreptitiously), he is not sure he has done the right thing. Henkin delivers a heavy dose of changing family traditions in the 1990s, which for some readers may be a struggle. Still, this is an illuminating work; recommended for general collections.?Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, Md.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 230 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; First Edition edition (April 14, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399141162
• ISBN-13: 978-0399141164
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,674,414 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Touching story of identity and family. Great first novel., June 9, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Swimming across the Hudson (Hardcover)

The New York Times review hits all the major points. This is a touching story of two adopted brothers, one in search of more than just his biological mother. It raises questions about identity, family, all told through the voice of one of the brothers. A great first novel. I look forward to reading more from Henki

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Debut, October 15, 2007

By 

UES - See all my reviews

This review is from: Swimming across the Hudson (Hardcover)

Perhaps it's unfair to compare a current work to a book an author wrote a decade ago (after all, it's to be expected--and hoped--that the author would show growth in ten years) but I ordered Swimming across the Hudson right after reading the wonderful Matrimony, so the comparison seemed inevitable.

Swimming across the Hudson is a good novel, about the things that make us (or divide us) into a family, and has compelling characters. But I felt it lacked the wonderful simplicity that made Matrimony such an outstanding book. Still, Swimming across the Hudson is a worthy effort, by a talented author.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The characters were human and believable, the story touching, July 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Swimming across the Hudson (Hardcover)

I picked up this book one day when I was home from work with food poisoning.Immediately, it took my mind off the illness, and transported me to the world of these characters, struggling with very real concerns which underpin the most pressing issues of identity. Good work, Josh!!! You have created a very real and convincing story.