Description: A young woman tests the limits of her independence. She travels light and asks for little. She knows what men want: sex and authority. She is willing to give them her body, but she fiercely holds on to her belief that she is the one in charge. Living lean, and sometimes desperate, still she claims her selfhood by making her life her story.
Brief description: Sandra Scofield was born and raised in west Texas, lived for 30 years in Southern Oregon, and now divides her time between Missoula, Montana, and Portland, Oregon. She is the author of seven novels, a memoir, a popular craft book for writers--"The Scene Book," and most recently, a book of essays about family. Her second craft book, about novel revision, is forthcoming Fall 2017 from Penguin Press. Her many literary awards include an American Book Award and a fiction award from the Texas Institute of Letters; a fiction award from The American Aademy of Arts and Letters, and The American Book Award. She has also received an NEA/USIA New American Writing Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Oregon Institute of Letters, and the Oregon Arts Council. Three of her books were NYT Notable Books of the Year. Her most recent book, "Mysteries of Love and Grief," was runner-up for the Willa Cather Women Writing the West Award (2016). Scofield has been on the faculty of the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival for more than twenty years, and is a faculty member of the Pine Manor Solstice Creative Writing Program since 2007. She is also a painter. sandrajscofield.com
Review Quotes:
From American Book Award winner and National Book Award finalist comes a long-awaited book of stories.
Three connected stories about an ingénue who travels across continents and oceans in the 1960s.
Scofield (Occasions of Sin, 2004, etc.) offers three pieces about solo travel as a woman flirts with danger while trying to prove a theory about female autonomy. In each story--"Oh Baby Oh," a hitchhiking tale; "An Easy Pass," about a stay at a bullfighter's ranch; and the title story, set on the island of Mykonos with two soldiers--Baby attempts to use her sexuality to curry favor. But she doesn't yet understand men, herself, or how this might work. Baby--as she lets the men call her--carries The Stranger and misguided regret. "She does not yet think of herself and her peers as men and women," nor has she formed skills to stay in one place and deal with conflict. First she hitchhikes west, toward the dream of a soldier she met as a teen, an idea she admits to herself "is so ridiculous, and so certain" that she is willing to risk her safety. Next, on the bullfighter's ranch, she sees men practice the art of power play with bulls and women. To the matadors, the games have consequences. "Why, then," she writes, "would I want to practice passes, except to go into the ring...." Each encounter between man and woman, animal and man, is fraught with the tension of seductive control. Finally, Scofield flips the power dynamic on Mykonos. But Baby's self-harming betrays her outward confidence. She tries her hardest to communicate her theory about female independence, arguing, "I want my own damned reasons to be who I am....I want my own schedule for it." Her happiness depends on her ability to adapt. Short pieces by an author who wields unease like a tool; a lean volume full of hearty character details and mid-20s yearning. - Kirkus Reviews
"The stories in SWIM are exquisite renderings by a restless narrator who knows life's lessons will only be revealed to her future self... Each one is a gift by a master at the height of her talents." -James Anderson, The Never-Open Desert Diner and Lullaby Road
PRAISE FOR PREVIOUS WORKS
"Scofield's sense of history and of place is unfaltering, unflagging...." --Boston Sunday Globe
"In its groping sense of honesty and its plain-spoken, understated pain, it has the attributes of a classic." -Art Winslow, Chicago Tribune
"Poignant and clearly cathartic, this is a tender, melancholic coming-of-age story." -Publishers Weekly
"Scofield investigates the insistence of desire, the inability to transcend the body and the indissoluble bond between mother and daughter." -San Francisco Chronicle
Scofield creates "a richly sensory portrait of a world in exile--not only in a foreign land but within one woman's own skin." --New York Times Book Review
Scofield's subtly nuanced portrayal of the awkwardness, confusion, and inchoate desires of adolescence is remarkable for its balance, insight, and cumulative power." --Publishers Weekly