Juno's Swans

Starred review from August 13, 2018
Wolff’s debut novel is a riveting account of first love. In the summer of 1988, between Nina’s junior and senior year of high school in Vermont, she jumps at the chance to run away from an illicit relationship with her English teacher, enrolls in an acting course on Cape Cod, and heads to the Cape with her best friend, Titch. On their first weekend there, Nina meets Sarah, a talented but distant teaching assistant in her late 20s, and quickly becomes infatuated with her, leaving Titch in the lurch. With Sarah, future possibilities seem endless, and the realities of Nina’s life at home quickly fade: the death of her grandfather, the deteriorating health of her grandmother, the frequent absences of her mother, and her father’s abandonment of the family. Yet from the novel’s very first sentence, “Sarah says she’s in love with someone else,” the narrative is centered on heartbreak. As Nina’s relationship with Sarah unravels, America unravels in the backdrop as well, with the AIDS epidemic and cultural tensions roiling the nation. Although Nina is keenly aware of the political landscape, Wolff’s crushing novel is ultimately a very personal story, vividly rendered in a montage of memories. Considering both romantic and platonic female relationships, Wolff explores the necessity of lived (instead of studied) experience and the lasting importance of loved ones. Agent: Stacy Testa, Writers House.

Starred review from July 1, 2018
In As You Like It, Shakespeare described lovers who, like Juno's Swans, were "coupled and inseparable." He could have been referring to Nina and Sarah, young women who meet during a summer theater workshop on Cape Cod.Nina is just 17; Sarah is a slightly older college student working as an assistant acting coach in the program Nina attends. Virtually immediately, the pair fall into head-over-heels love; within a week, they've moved in together and seem to settle into a tranquil domesticity. They're discreet but not closeted. Sarah has had other lesbian romances; Nina has not, but she's more than willing. In fact, she's hungry for attention and affection, having already experienced a shocking number of upsets and difficulties: Her father abandoned the family when she was a child; her grandfather committed suicide; her mom seems more interested in her career than in parenting her only child; her grandmother has begun the descent into age-related dementia; and an affair with an older, male teacher during her junior year of high school has left her confused, disturbed, and disgusted. Traveling from her New Hampshire home to Cape Cod, Nina reasons, will be an adventure. Initially, her plan was to travel to Wellfleet with her best friend, Titch, attend class, and work at a catering hall, a trio of activities that she believes will prepare her to survive her upcoming senior year. But once Sarah enters the mix, the plan goes awry. Suffice it to say that what unfolds is by turns tragic, heartfelt, funny, and charming. Set during the Reagan years, the novel has a backdrop of the burgeoning HIV-AIDS crisis and the post-Stonewall emergence of a strong LGBTQ movement, and numerous pop-culture references add authenticity. The strains that often emerge between women--among them, Titch is furious about being abandoned by Nina--are showcased, and when Nina ultimately gets jilted, the searing pain of a broken heart is rendered evocatively but without melodrama or sap. It's first love writ large. Thanks to numerous supporting players--other students in the theater class and several neighbors and co-workers--the book not only situates the relationship in a broader political context, but makes time and place vivid ancillary characters.Captivating and achingly realistic, this is a stunning debut.

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September 1, 2018
In the summer before their senior year of high school, Nina and her best friend, Titch, leave their small New England town for Cape Cod. There they will house-sit, attend camps?theater for Nina, painting for Titch?and work catering jobs while being watched over, sort of, by Titch's older stepsister. Theirs will be a sandy, artistic, unsupervised bliss. Things quickly stray from plan, however, when Nina falls hard for Sarah, an assistant instructor at her camp. Nina's narration reveals the complicated family relationships that leave her aching for love; a recent, narrowly escaped tryst with a high-school teacher; and Titch's pain at losing her to Sarah, though Nina can't quite recognize it at first. With its acutely portrayed psychological depth, a heady summer at its heart, and its focus on a well-worn friendship that becomes uncharted territory when first love enters the picture, Princeton associate professor Wolff's debut, coming-of-age novel casts a literary spell that recalls the dazzling second book of Elena Ferrante's Neopolitan novels, The Story of a New Name (2013).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)