In Lynn Steger Strong's The Float Test, someone is always diving under a wave, peeling off a shirt for a quick swim, or sitting poolside with their feet in the water. Characters are stretching long strokes out past the break or aiming for a distant sandbar. Rarely are they floating--"None of us had had the patience, the ability, to lie back and be still like that." "Us" refers to Kenner siblings Jenn, Fred (short for Winnifred), Jude (short for Judy), and George, around whom Strong (Hold Still; Want) builds a blistering novel about Florida and family dynamics, evoking heat and uncertainty as well as the comforts of home, no matter how long you've been away.
The Float Test explores the unhappy complications among these four adult siblings who are reckoning with their past and their possibilities after the untimely death of their mother. Jenn, the eldest and unofficial spokesperson for the group, delivers the eulogy at their mother's funeral: "She said a bunch of stuff about Mom that was at least half made-up." Strong tangles with this idea of partial truths or, in the case of writer Fred, truth masquerading as fiction. The novel gives readers the most access to Fred, but it is voiced by Jude. There has been a rift between the middle sisters, a betrayal obscured until nearly the end of the novel, and their physical estrangement makes for a provocative contrast with the narrative's intimacy. With so many cracks in this complicated family's facade, readers will wonder if they will be able to weather the storm. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian