ELSEWHERE GIRLS

Two Australian girls swap bodies and eras: Cat Feeney goes back to 1908 and Fanny Durack forward to 2021, experiences that prove liberating for both.

Their lives converge when each of them, in their separate times, go swimming at Wylie’s Baths in Coogee, near Sydney. Cat and Fanny narrate their confusion over the jarring body-swapping time travel in alternating first-person voices. As they pick up clues, they discover that they have swimming in common. Their responses to women’s roles and the conveniences and inconveniences of life in each time period are warmly relatable. Cat hates restrictive, gender-based chores and clothing. Laundry and ironing require hours of labor, and she dislikes swimming in a heavy woolen bathing suit. Fanny is thrilled to go to school and enjoys riding in cars. She favors packaged food and is shy about her skimpy bathing suit. As Cat and Fanny rail against and adjust to their circumstances, they each clarify their passions, defining for themselves, without family or cultural pressures, their goals: Cat to get her Surf Rescue Certificate; Fanny to fight for a women’s Olympic swim team. How can they trade places again so they can pursue their dreams? Cat is White, as is Fanny, a character inspired by Sarah Frances Durack, who in 1912 became the first woman swimmer to win an Olympic gold for Australia. Racial diversity in secondary characters reflects past prejudices and changing attitudes.

A charming, eye-opening exploration of gender restrictions and self-determination.