Friday, July 31, 2009

Pg. 99: Glenn Stout's "Young Woman and the Sea"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World by Glenn Stout.

About the book, from the publisher:
In 1926, before skirt lengths inched above the knee and before anyone was ready to accept that a woman could test herself physically, a plucky American teenager named Trudy Ederle captured the imagination of the world when she became the first woman to swim the English Channel. It was, and still is, a feat more incredible and uncommon than scaling Mount Everest. Upon her return to the United States, "Trudy of America" became the most famous woman in the world. And just as quickly, she disappeared from the public eye.

Set against the backdrop of the roaring 1920s, Young Woman and the Sea is the dramatic and inspiring story of Ederle’s pursuit of a goal no one believed possible, and the price she paid. The moment Trudy set foot on land, triumphant, she had shattered centuries of stereotypes and opened doors for generations of women to come. A truly magnetic and often misunderstood character whose story is largely forgotten, Trudy Ederle comes alive in these pages through Glenn Stout’s exhaustive new research.
Read an excerpt from Young Woman and the Sea, and learn more about the book and author at Glenn Stout's website and blog.

The Page 99 Test: Young Woman and the Sea.

--Marshal Zeringue