LEARNING TO FLOAT

Finding it difficult to commit, a journalist in her 30s spends a summer driving down the East Coast while she recalls past loves and ponders present options.

Wright is an accomplished writer (New York Times, Baltimore Sun, etc.), and she vividly describes her encounters with colorful characters en route. But the details of her personal relationships—the sex, her herpes infection, the men themselves—often make for queasy reading. Attending graduate journalism courses in New York, she feels torn between old love Stuart, a veterinarian whose dog Brando briefly accompanies her, and new swain Peter, a writer. Panicked by her inability to choose, she decides to travel alone for the summer. Wright hopes that by revisiting her past and reflecting on her present situation she will reach a decision. Beginning in Maine, she moves to New Hampshire and there decides to include in her itinerary places like Nantucket, where she had a summer fling with a waiter, and Greenwich, Connecticut, where she spent weekends with her wealthy beau Dodge, a Wall Street banker. She meets people like recently divorced Carl, who asks her where love goes when a marriage breaks down, and South Carolina fisherman Troy, who takes her shrimping off Edisto Island. She also recalls the other men in her life. While working in Colorado, Wright had three suitors vying for her affections. Describing her grandparents’ marriage as well as that of her parents, she wonders whether her inability to commit is similar to her father’s debilitating claustrophobia. But finally, while swimming in Key West, she has a defining epiphany that makes the whole adventure worthwhile. It all seems strained, and sometimes as irrelevant as her grandfather’s comments on love and marriage that preface each section.

Another well-written but tiresomely narcissistic voyage of self-discovery.