Against Gravity

Against Gravity: A Novel by Lucy Ferriss

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


I picked this book up several years ago in a bargain bin. I'm glad I didn't spend a lot of money on it. I struggled to get through it and finally at month end, I just admitted defeat and didn't finish it. I'm not sure why I struggled with this book, the writing wasn't terrible. Maybe it was the skipping back and forth between the past, the not-so-past, and the present - while it was well done, I generally avoid books that do a lot of that. Blame it on low intelligence, but I think authors shouldn't need to do that skipping around to create drama. And that is all they're doing.

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Synopsis: Growing up in a dreary hamlet along the Hudson River in upstate New York, Gwyn Stickley, nicknamed "Stick", is determined to escape from her seemingly static yet volatile world. Obsessed with her rail-thin body and estranged from her parents and her self destructive peers, Stick feels trapped in a world where nothing ever seems to happen. As she... more » soon finds out, even small towns can hide disturbing secrets.

She begins to look at her surroundings with fresh eyes when her friend JoAnn becomes pregnant, and is dependent on Stick to both hide and resolve her "dilemma." Suddenly, Stick sees new divisions emerge between old friends and neighbors, and even between her father and mother, whose troubles have roots in mysterious relationships established long ago.

Learning to master her body and her emotions through dancing, Stick eventually flees to Manhattan in search of a career on Broadway. Although gifted, she ultimately finds that her gift should assert itself not just in control over the steps but also through passion. With this discovery, she finally returns home, where surprising new demands assert themselves. Stick prematurely takes on adult responsibilities by caring for her father after a gruesome fall. The legacy of JoAnn's pregnancy and a startling revelation about her mother's past force Stick to assume an unexpected family role. These new responsibilities, however, also free her to express her need for sex and intimacy, and she finally learns to accept the uncontrollable nature of love and pain.