Entertaining recollections of a successful swimming career.
A debut memoir of a swimmer who recovered from surgery to compete in the 1960 Olympics.
Six days before the U.S. Olympic trials for the 1960 Games in Rome, Farrell, then the fastest swimmer in the world, underwent an emergency appendectomy. His dreams of making the U.S. team, let alone winning Olympic gold, appeared to be shattered. This stirring account details how he defied the medical odds and managed to return to the water in time for the trials. “I had accomplished a virtual athletic miracle,” he recalls, and he would go on to win two gold medals in relay events—a testament, he says, to his “strange combination of physical and mental distress, despair, doubt, hope, belief and finally courage to accomplish my goal.” When he initially woke up from the anesthesia, his understanding of what had happened to him had reduced him to tears: “[T]he surgeon had removed not only my appendix, but also my dream of winning a gold medal in the Rome Olympics.” But only two days after the surgery, he was walking around in a pool in the hospital basement, his 5-inch incision protected by a wraparound bandage. Before his first race at the trials, “a girl placed a small crucifix from her rosary on my starting block,” expressing what the author took to be “fear, faith, and hope.” Farrell effectively interweaves his story of miraculous recovery with engaging recollections of his swimming career: As a youth, he trained in a 16-yard pool in Wichita, Kansas, that had no lanes or markings. He also looks at the evolution of his sport; at the time he competed, for example, there were no goggles, forcing some swimmers to rub Vaseline on their eyeballs to reduce the irritation from chlorine. Although Farrell missed out on his best event, the 100-yard freestyle, in Rome, his success still provides a powerful coda. Readers will leave with the pointed lesson that “it really wasn’t just about winning….[F]or me, it was also about moving forward in life.”
Entertaining recollections of a successful swimming career.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0692276198
Page Count: 155
Publisher: Vintage Team Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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