Swallow edition by Tonya Plank Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : Swallow edition by Tonya Plank Literature Fiction eBooks 
GOLD MEDAL WINNER, Best Regional Fiction, Northeast Region, 2010 IPPY Awards
GOLD MEDAL WINNER, Women's Fiction, 2010 Living Now Book Awards,
FINALIST, General Fiction, 2009 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards,
FINALIST, Best Regional Fiction, 2010 National Indie Excellence Awards
Sophie Hegel is a shy New York lawyer from small-town Florence Arizona, known not for the Renaissance but for housing a large prison. She's just graduated from Yale Law School and landed her first job when, one evening she feels a fist-like ball form at the base of her throat. Diagnosed with the psychological condition Globus Sensate, this "fist-ball" wreaks havoc on her life, causing difficulty eating, speaking, and eventually breathing. With a cast of characters that includes a pornographer father, a sister with a knack for getting knocked up by denizens of the town pen, a tough-talking fashion maven, a painter of male nudes, an eccentric Sing Sing-residing client and a bevy of privileged Manhattan attorneys and judges, Swallow is a dark comedy about the distance that can separate fathers and daughters, and about a young woman's struggle to survive in a world of pedigreed professionals for which she has no preparation.
Swallow edition by Tonya Plank Literature Fiction eBooks
But the star rating doesn't lie: I hated it. As with other reviewers, initially I found the main character to be an engaging, likable character. But as in the review directly prior to mine, I found the character's appreciation of her anorexic state disconcerting. If that had ever been addressed or redeemed, it'd have made perfect sense as a well done bit of writing - but instead, the final scenes continue to involve celebration of weight loss (in a character who'd previously been called gorgeous, with long drop-dead legs, etc, as well as with a fashion show reference), a theme which was clearly meant to be troublesome earlier (or was it?). I felt a bit as if we left Sophie and the story and instead wandered into the author's struggle to fit into a rigidly shallow society while beginning to earn enough money herself to justify spending hundreds on a bikini and begin to buy her way through the maze.Speaking of, while some felt the 9/11 setting gave Sophie the impetus to move forward, I felt instead as if the author simply wanted to get her personal 9/11 story out there. It was not necessary to the book, is a complicated issue for many and it feels a bit manipulative to have been dragged into that story. It is a hell and I mean HELL of a thing to have lived through, I am not making light of that and I imagine it would be hard *not* to put your character in your shoes, but it just didn't work for me, for this story.
Additionally, I was left feeling that the final "resolution" was something of a cop-out when the author simply couldn't figure out how *to* resolve some issues. I mean, what would the resolution be in regards to Sophie's family? Stephen? Even Alana. Who knows. Better to just find a location cure and call it a day.
Maybe that's my main issue - at some point, the story became less of a story and more of a fragmented personal journal.
*Apologies for the old-school internet use of asterisks in lieu of bolding or italicizing
And a p.s. to the author or anyone else who might be interested,
In pop culture references, the nude model being splashed with a hose (seen during a gallery event in the book) is generally accepted as evoking one being splashed with, er, something else. In short, the argument over her body type was missing a pretty flagrant message as to the model's agency - as in her capacity to control her situation, not her modeling agency. And if in this case, a hose was just a hose... that still brings pretty strong human rights imagery to mind. But you know, she's so skinnnnny! It just seemed so odd in the midst of several sort of random "feminist" comments to have missed the largest issue with that type of imagery. In particular, given Sophie's dad's line of work, it's not something that would've flown under the radar. I instantly began to dislike Sophie during the scene.
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Swallow edition by Tonya Plank Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
Meh. This book takes two very serious subjects (a mental illness and 9/11) and tries to turn them into a lightweight, chick-lit comedy. It shouldn't surprise anyone that it doesn't work all that well. What does surprise me is that it won several awards.
The main character, Sophie, is a young lawyer who suffers from Globus Sensate, a sensation that an imaginary ball (which she has named Fistball or F-B because it feels like a human fist) is stuck in her throat. Although imaginary, it feels very real to the sufferer, and can even lead to choking and loss of consciousness. It interferes with Sophie's ability to talk, eat, and even to drink water. She begins to lose weight at such an alarming rate that her family and friends think she has anorexia.
Aware that it is a mental condition rather than a real blockage, Sophie tries to hide her problem from her colleagues, friends, family, and especially from her perfectionist, snobbish, and controlling fiancé.
There is a scene in which an ex-girlfriend of Sophie's fiancé throws an engagement party for them, but steals the show, monopolizes the fiancé's attention, and publicly excludes Sophie from the close and lifelong bond that she has with Sophie's boyfriend. It's apparently supposed to be funny, but for me it was excruciatingly painful to read. (Perhaps it bothered me more because I once went to a female friend's wedding where that really did happen.)
And it didn't make sense that a young woman with enough intelligence to be an attorney can't see what a jerk her boyfriend is and dump him.
I was thoroughly offended by the way all people who live in Arizona are portrayed as vulgar, illiterate, "trailer trash" (the writer's term, no offense intended by me - I can't speak for Plank - to anyone who lives in a mobile home.) It's way over the top, obviously deliberately caricatured in an attempt at humor, but it fell flat with this Arizonan. I suspect that even readers who are not from Arizona might find it irritatingly overdone.
Also the part about 9/11 didn't seem to relate to the rest of the book. I can see why any book set in New York during the time period encompassing 2001 would need to mention 9/11. It had such a huge impact that to ignore it would seem surreal and implausible. But Plank didn't need to include a scene of Sophie escaping down a 19-story stairwell which does absolutely nothing to forward the plot. Even the writer seems to realize this, as she quickly skims over the scene. She does attempt to tie in the 9/11 scenes with the story by making 9/11 the inspiration for Sophie to get her act together, but again, she doesn't develop it enough to make that work.
I did enjoy the descriptions of fashions, and I was especially interested to learn about Globus Sensate, which I had never heard of before. That's what the three stars are for.
(402 pages)
But the star rating doesn't lie I hated it. As with other reviewers, initially I found the main character to be an engaging, likable character. But as in the review directly prior to mine, I found the character's appreciation of her anorexic state disconcerting. If that had ever been addressed or redeemed, it'd have made perfect sense as a well done bit of writing - but instead, the final scenes continue to involve celebration of weight loss (in a character who'd previously been called gorgeous, with long drop-dead legs, etc, as well as with a fashion show reference), a theme which was clearly meant to be troublesome earlier (or was it?). I felt a bit as if we left Sophie and the story and instead wandered into the author's struggle to fit into a rigidly shallow society while beginning to earn enough money herself to justify spending hundreds on a bikini and begin to buy her way through the maze.
Speaking of, while some felt the 9/11 setting gave Sophie the impetus to move forward, I felt instead as if the author simply wanted to get her personal 9/11 story out there. It was not necessary to the book, is a complicated issue for many and it feels a bit manipulative to have been dragged into that story. It is a hell and I mean HELL of a thing to have lived through, I am not making light of that and I imagine it would be hard *not* to put your character in your shoes, but it just didn't work for me, for this story.
Additionally, I was left feeling that the final "resolution" was something of a cop-out when the author simply couldn't figure out how *to* resolve some issues. I mean, what would the resolution be in regards to Sophie's family? Stephen? Even Alana. Who knows. Better to just find a location cure and call it a day.
Maybe that's my main issue - at some point, the story became less of a story and more of a fragmented personal journal.
*Apologies for the old-school internet use of asterisks in lieu of bolding or italicizing
And a p.s. to the author or anyone else who might be interested,
In pop culture references, the nude model being splashed with a hose (seen during a gallery event in the book) is generally accepted as evoking one being splashed with, er, something else. In short, the argument over her body type was missing a pretty flagrant message as to the model's agency - as in her capacity to control her situation, not her modeling agency. And if in this case, a hose was just a hose... that still brings pretty strong human rights imagery to mind. But you know, she's so skinnnnny! It just seemed so odd in the midst of several sort of random "feminist" comments to have missed the largest issue with that type of imagery. In particular, given Sophie's dad's line of work, it's not something that would've flown under the radar. I instantly began to dislike Sophie during the scene.
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