Aganetha Smart is a 104-year-old one-time Olympic gold medalist whose fame has long since faded. Readers join Aganetha's story when she is alone in a nursing home; she has no living family or friends and spends her days trapped in her withered body. Her only escape is the memory of her life long ago.
The careful unraveling of her secretive past begins with the arrival of Kaley, a young aspiring runner, and her companion, who at first say they are friends come to visit but later claim to be filmmakers. They receive permission to take Aganetha out for the day and load her into their car, touring sites from her childhood. Though they film the old woman with Kaley, it becomes clear they want more from her than just a story. They want something from her past that will affect their future.
The resulting memories are not a sugarcoated retelling of her life, but neither are they the exhausted ramblings of a woman ready to die. Instead, the narrator of this exhilarating novel offers a no-nonsense, truthful account of her experiences, including her brief moment of international fame.
Carrie Snyder (The Juliet Stories) writes with prowess, immersing readers in each moment. The cohesive narrative maintains a fluid sense of time, moving between the present and snapshots of Aganetha's past. While the pieces of Aganetha's long life come out of sequence, Snyder's unifying themes of sibling relationships and family bonds make striking connections between the centenarian's current situation and the memories she relives. --Justus Joseph, bookseller at Elliott Bay Book Company