Reading this novel, I felt moved by the different times and how much has changed. It tugged at my heart to see these two people find love through such difficult times. At some points, I felt things got a bit too slow but overall, this was a great read. This book shows you how different times and different places that we can be thrown in such different worlds.

Swimming Between Worlds is a beautifully written coming of age story of racism and acceptance in the 1960's.

Swimming Between Worlds gives a unique glimpse into life in Winston-Salem, North Carolina during the American Civil Rights Movement. Tacker has just returned home following a brief time of employment in Africa and is having trouble leaving all his experiences behind in order to fit in again in North Carolina. Kate is still reeling from the loss of both parents and is trying to find her way in a changing world. These two young people find love and each other through these tumultuous times.

I enjoyed the story but found it plodding along at some points. I did feel the author did an excellent job conveying the feelings at that time and providing insight into the many conflicting emotions and stereotypes held. The characters were well developed and engaging. I was dissatisfied with the ending and felt the pacing for the end of the story did not match up with the pacing throughout the book.

I received this book courtesy of Berkley Publishing Group through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The historical significance of this story and its relevance today is stark. It’s uncomfortable because we know the racism that existed in the 1950’s that led up to the Civil Rights Movement and even more appalling that so much of the racism in the 1950’s and 1960’s is too recognizable today. Sometimes acts of blatant racism are called teaching moments as did the graceful and articulate Valerie Jarrett, a top aid to former President Obama when this past week she was derided and denigrated in an ugly tweet by an ignorant tv star. There have been other teachable moments recently in the news at a Starbucks in Philadelphia, at an Airbnb in California, or a common room of dorm at Yale. Actually so many more when you think of the young black men shot at a traffic stop or in their grandmother’s backyard. This list is long and the question becomes what will it take to learn? This story provides teachable moments as well, but not in an in your face preachy way but by depicting characters whose beliefs and deeds rise above racism.

It’s 1958 in a segregated Winston-Salem, NC and we are introduced to three young people who are at a crossroads in their lives. Tacker, a budding architect is sent home from Nigeria where he was working with a firm to design a high school . He is sent home for mingling with Nigerians and interfering in customs. Eventually through flashbacks, we discover his genuine love of the country and how much his friendships meant to him. He takes over managing his fathers’s grocery store until he can get his bearings. Kate, a high school acquaintance is back home from college after her mother’s death is unsure if she wants to be there. While I wouldn’t consider this a coming of age story, it is about these young people trying to find themselves. Gaines, the young black man home from college to help a sick mother works for Tacker, is involved in the Civil Rights Movement. This is a well written story and I really liked these characters from the start and was vested in what would happen to them as their connections grew. The story moved a little too slowly but I have to admit that I was shocked in the end. Definitely a book I recommend. Elaine Neil Orr is the daughter of missionaries and lived in Nigeria as well as Winston-Salem, NC. The following is an interesting interview with her that shed some light on her experiences in both places. https://thenavireview.com/2018/04/25/a-heart-in-two-homelands-elaine-neil-orr-opens-up-about-how-being-white-in-the-1960s-american-south-and-nigeria-influenced-her-novel-swimming-between-worlds/

I received an advanced copy of this book from Berkeley Publishing Group through NetGalley.

It's 1960, and Tacker Hart, a young architect, has just returned from a year and a half in Nigeria to his home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was there as part of a project to build high schools, and while there he fell in love with local culture. He made Nigerian friends. And he's been sent home in disgrace, for "going native."

Kate Monroe was a high school classmate, but went to Agnes Scott College. Unexpectedly even to herself, she's become a photographer. She has also, after the death of her and her brother Brian's father several years earlier, now nursed her mother through her death from cancer. She's living in the family home--she inherited the house, while Brian inherited "the cabin," and lives there--and trying to find her footing.

She and Tacker each, separately, encounter Gaines, a young African-American man who will have a significant impact on them both.

Tacker is currently managing the family grocery store, and he hires Gaines as store staff. Gaines walks home past Kate's home, and she's alarmed because, well, black people are scary to her. It's 1960, and the lunch counter sit-ins are about to start, and Gaines is going to be actively involved.

After a year and a half in Nigeria, Tacker already sees his home, and black-white relations, differently. Gaines opens his eyes even further. And when Kate starts shopping regularly in the old, familiar Hart's Grocery again, she and Tacker start to affect each other.

Tacker needs to find his way back to architecture. Kate needs to find her footing and her confidence as a photographer, in a time when women with independent careers are still not fully accepted. Gaines' challenges, while by far the most daunting, are in some ways the least complicated, at least in that he's not at all conflicted about his goals. He also, of course, has the most realistic grasp, of the three, of what he's trying to do.

We get some significant flashbacks to Nigeria, as we learn what Tacker experienced and learned. We get fewer, but still significant, flashbacks for Kate.

Gaines is the one we have to learn to understand almost entirely from the outside, and that feels right. As the only African-American among the three significant characters, he's the least accessible to the other two, in 1960 Winston-Salem, with the greatest need for self-protection.

I took several breaks while reading this, to absorb what I was reading, but it was well worth it. I was a child in New England when the events behind this novel were happening, and it's an alien piece of history for me.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Written with candor and compassion, Orr’s second novel takes place in the conservative South in 1959 with short flashbacks to her home country of Nigeria. Through the intertwining stories of Kate Monroe and Tacker Hart, she illustrates the challenges of unlearning ingrained racism and how immersion in a new culture can reveal problems in one’s own backyard.

Both viewpoint characters sit at a crossroads. Tacker, a former high school football star, is back in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, pondering his career path. During the year and a half he spent in Ibadan on an architectural design project, he’d become good friends with his Nigerian coworkers and soaked up the Yoruba culture. Following his dramatic firing for “going native,” he takes a job at home, managing his father’s grocery. Kate, his former classmate, finds herself alone after her parents’ death. While debating a photography career, she learns a family secret that upends her world. After meeting Tacker again, she finds him attractive yet somehow changed, and he’s drawn to the prickly Kate.

The third protagonist is Gaines Townson, a young black man who Tacker hires and befriends, and of whom Kate is initially suspicious due to his skin color. Through Gaines, Tacker gets introduced to the ongoing civil rights struggle. This is the era of sit-ins at Woolworth lunch counters, segregated swimming pools, sexist attitudes, and racist attacks on African-Americans—all sharply rendered (and some of which sadly hasn’t changed). Fortunately, Gaines is more than a vehicle for the others’ emotional growth; he’s a well-developed character with a rich family life and his own future plans.

Against this backdrop of social unrest, their relationships with one another unfold in a tentative, realistic manner, as each decides what’s most important. Orr’s gracefully written, character-centered tale, showing how beliefs are formed and transformed, is both original and memorable.

(from the Historical Novels Review, May 2018)

Thank you to Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of Swimming Between Worlds in exchange for my honest review.

This was a slow read with a very crafty title. Story set on the cusp of the Civil Rights Movement and follows three individuals as they find themselves untethered in a small North Carolina town. I found myself not engaging with the story and ofen putting off returning to the pages. I did finish but it took me over a month to read through. Not my favorite read and one that will not linger.

Author Elaine Neil Orr brings readers a novel set during the turbulent civil rights movement of the 1960's. Swimming Between Worlds is part romance, part political drama. Racial tensions and segregation were at an all time high when three young people from different walks of life, come together in a way that will change their lives forever. Swimming Between Worlds is a compelling novel that will draw readers back in time and make them consider the question of race and how it relates to us today, in a whole new way. A necessary novel!



What I liked:



Ok, i'll be the first to admit that most of the books I review do not generally have such an emotional and deep subject. Racial tension in America is still high and people view it through very different lenses. I grew up in the South and most likely see it differently than someone who is from say, New York, or even overseas. A book like this one by Elaine Neil Orr shines a light not only on what the country was going through during the height of the civil rights movement, but what we are still going through today. Things have certainly changed, but in someways remain the same. And that in my opinion is a sad fact. Swimming Between Worlds is a more complicated book than the usual fare here, but it is definitely one I won't soon forget.



Tacker was a high school star, prepared for greatness. He was poised to become a great architect until things go awry during an assignment in Nigeria. He comes home in a bit of disgrace and ends up managing his families local grocery store, but while he was abroad he became enmeshed with the Nigerian people and their culture. His return to the South makes him start to question the laws and the lack of rights of African American's in his own community. Tacker's character is basically starting to see his world in a way he is unused to and it has a profound affect on him. Orr basically creates a coming of age story but it's not about becoming a man it's more about becoming a human, if that makes sense. It's about finding your own truth in the midst of a world that is telling you something entirely different. Tacker's character to me, was like the person who has been blind to something, seeing it for the first time. Extremely, well drawn characters are one of Elaine Neil Orr's strengths in this novel.



The other two young people in the novel Kate and Gaines are also very well drawn and will strike cords within the reader as well. Kate is recovering from the loss of her parents and seeing her find out things she never knew about them through old letters is both emotional and stirring to the core. Kate is essentially adrift in her life and when she is left the family home and it's contents she begins to turn a corner of her own. One where she finds out what is most important in life. Her relationship with Tacker creates the love story in the book, but it certainly takes a back seat to the political arena and the tumultuous setting of the book.



Gaines a young black man, who pushes the boundaries of the Jim Crow laws. He knows that change will never come if no one takes a stand. He is the type of character we all wish we could be in some ways. We see something wrong and we fix it. But obviously, life is often not like that. It takes a special person to carry out the difficult things. To put their life in jeopardy to make life better for the next generation. I had great respect for this character and people like him. Orr does such an amazing job of bringing her characters to life. By the end of the book readers will feel like they know them. That their stories are somehow intertwined with their own. Such amazing writing!



What I didn't Like:



There isn't much I didn't like here. There were parts of it that certainly bothered me. There were parts that were eye opening and challenging. The deep stuff often makes us uncomfortable. I laughed in parts, cried in others and felt generally overwhelmed at times reading it. There was love between Tacker and Kate and great friendship and understanding with Gaines. I don't think there is much to dislike about this novel except our own stupid behavior.



Bottom Line:



I thought Elaine Neil Orr did such an amazing job of comparing and contrasting what Tacker was seeing both in Nigeria and in North Carolina. Her storytelling is vivid and captivating and it honestly made me want to visit Nigeria for myself. Her descriptions of the culture and rituals were exceptional. But she also made me really think about how we as a country were treating other human beings and how we are still treating them. There were parts of this book that made me cringe, that made me ashamed and made me wish things were different. I wanted to be like Gaines, but sitting here reading a book or writing a blog post isn't important is it? But what if it were. What if using my own small platform could make a difference in some small way... Maybe that's what this book is really about.



Don't miss this one, guys. It's one of those books that matter.

DNF. I just could not get into this book. It sounded so promising. But very slow. When I found my self skimming pages I decided to call it.

This book was not at all what I expected but was excellent. It was the first I have read by this author and I will definitely look for more by her again. The story is set in the late 60s in Winston-Salem, when segregation is still in place but protests are becoming more of a regular occurrence. Tacker has returned from an unsuccessful stint in Nigeria, and is dealing with the consequences of that, Kate has lost both her parents and is dealing with that loss, and they both are united by a young African-American named Gaines. These three are key to the story and their interactions along with the setting that time make for a difficult but yet fulfilling read. This is not a book to read quickly, I wanted to take my time and just absorb her words as Elaine is very descriptive and just an overall excellent writer. Yes the story moved slow at times but I did not mind one bit. I had grown attached to all three of these characters, and the ending was not what I expected and left me in tears. Thanks to NetGalley for an electronic ARC of this book, very very glad I read it.

This book set in the early sixties to have been written today. This book looks at segregation during the sixties. Although we no longer have segregation, or not to the extent we once had it, we still have racial issues. As much as we want to ignore it this problem is still here. The story is told through multiple perspectives. Tacker goes to Nigeria to help build schools. He is considered a minority in Nigeria and learns what it is like to be discriminated against. He returns to the United States still passionate about Africa and wants to help make a change. He goes back to work for his father’s grocery. When he lets an African American into the store; and the kid is attacked, Tacker decides he needs to do something. Tacker has reconnected with Kate a girl from his high school. They have differing views on the racial situation. Tacker is able to change her mind. The lives of these three people intersect so seamlessly. Some of the racial tension could have come right out of our own newspapers. This is the first book I have read by this author. I am glad I was offered the opportunity to read and review it. Please take a moment and check it out. You really won’t be disappointed.

Dip deeply into Elaine Neil Orr's 'Swimming Between Worlds': fine storytelling at the intersection of three North Carolina lives (hede)

Only with the experience of living intimately on two diverse continents could a story about our civil rights struggle such as Elaine Neil Orr’s “Swimming Between Worlds” (Berkley) be told. As she writes in that novel, “people who have lived deeply in two countries always bear the awareness of both, even in their physical movement, like a twin carries his second self even when separated.”

It is that awareness, born of growing up in Nigeria and holding a day job as a professor of English at North Carolina State University, that perhaps allows Orr a perspective at times more tender, at times more tenacious than the lens though which a native could view that continuing era.

This, then, is the result: a 1960s coming-of-age story set in Winston-Salem but anchored in West Africa, the effect of three lives intersecting at a moment — one that today we know as momentous — of our nation’s burgeoning racial consciousness.

There is Tacker Hart, a southern football hero whose eyes are opened by both his internship in and disgraceful return from Africa.

There is Kate Monroe, a young woman tragically bereft of parents, searching for and discovering more than she asked for in the story of her parents’ love affair.

And there is Gaines Townson, an African-American man whose own story both divides and joins Tacker and Kate as he serves as catalyst and foil to their journey toward social maturity.

Rarely is a novel so accurately titled as Orr’s. Set indeed in two worlds, these lives and others blend, merge and diverge in a sea of wonderful prose and pure storytelling infused with all the right elements marking a fine Southern novel: a Nigerian baptism, homage to Thomas Wolfe and peans upon peans for the literary tradition.

Although Orr’s work is at times unevenly written, it is sentences such as this, “literature was pain organized with the symmetry of a camellia,” that give her story an unusual grace. That the author could bridge such lyricism with a story that propels a reader the end distinguishes it. "Swimming Between Worlds" is a must-have on your spring reading list.

Two main characters in this book. Kate has just graduated from college and is trying to decide where she wants to go next. She is parentless and living in her childhood home so she has some security, but no parental guidance. Tacker has returned from a dramatic trip to Africa and is having to find a new direction in life. Thankfully Tacker is able to take a job in his father's grocery store and take a moment to decide whats next.

Upon reading the synopsis and pitch for review for this book, I was ready for a great civil rights movement book and it absolutely had parts about the movements beginning moments in North Carolina. I loved the parts that really highlighted how Winston Salem was in the middle of the civil rights movement. BUT the African storyline and Kate in general were just ok in my opinion. For most of the book I felt as though the African storyline was an afterthought and I couldn't see the connection between that storyline and the North Carolina storyline and then it all clicked towards the end. I think the slowness of the beginning and the disconnectedness of it all were hard for me to get into, but in the end the book redeemed itself.

Overall I think this book was fine, it wasn't outstanding and it didn't leave me wanting to pass it around to all of my fellow readers who love historical fiction. I would send this book to a reader who has read all of the civil rights books and wants to add another to their list, but if you are like me and haven't read a ton of fiction that centers around this point of history, this book didn't satisfy that itch. It did make me want to find another book about civil rights and dive into that one very soon.

Well written and thoughtful novel about integration in 1960s Winston Salem. This is one of those novels where you need to cast yourself back and remember that things were, well, different then. Tacker has returned from his time in Nigeria a changed man- sensitive to the discrimination faced by African Americans where he had not even seen it before. Kate may seem a bit naive but this is not an unrealistic portrayal of a young woman during the time frame. Gaines, who ties the two (and the novel) together, is someone you'll wish you could meet. Orr has used her own deep knowledge of Nigeria to inform Tacker's experiences. She has also thoughtfully addressed the civil rights movement. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For fans of historical fiction.

This is the first novel I’ve ever read by author Elaine Neil Orr. She’s a terrific writer...
She has that spellbinding narrative-momentum talent down as great as all my favorite authors.

I didn’t rush-read this book —- but it could be a page turner. I purposely pulled myself away to think and reflect. I thought about the first time I left the country. I was a straight-arrow type student at UC Berkeley in the 70’s - an ex-cheerleader -gymnasts- single white female.
Looking back, I sheltered myself ( straight-lace as I was) at one of the most liberal colleges with colorful street people in the country.
So to visit countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, and India....it really ‘was’ a huge eye opening experience. I did not come back home the same person.
Either does Tacker Hart in “Swimming Between Worlds”

Elaine Neil Orr really understands her characters — their ages - their circumstances- their experiences- limitations - their passions and dreams. She makes them each interesting and not in spite of their flaws but because of them. She lets her story tell itself.
Her three main characters- Tacker Hart - Kate Monroe- and Gaines Townson - each very different people - dealing with their own inner struggles -discover that shared humanity profoundly affects the course of each of their lives.

Tacker Hart had finished his five year degree in architecture, school of design at the State College, in North Carolina, in 1957. Besides other honors and being a local star from his football days in High School - and ‘son’ of his dad’s grocery store-who was also well respected- Tacker was selected for project in Nigeria, serving in the capacity of a graduate teaching assistant to produce a prototype for high schools to be built all across the country.

Tacker ends up coming home early — but the story as to why should get you nice and ‘pissy-angry’ as it did me. You’ll meet Joshua, another guy on the project team, son of a higher up for the United States embassy in Lagos. Joshua is A liar and a betrayer.

Samual, Nigerian, on the other hand.... becomes a close friend with Tracker when he first arrived in Nigeria. He ate a ‘fresh’ pineapple for the first time in his life. I didn’t know that the custom in North Carolina in the late 50’s was canned pineapple.

Tacker and Samual exchange aerograms- letters back and forth from North Carolina and Nigeria.
By now they were moving into the 1960’s.
When I was sitting and reflecting about this story.... I was remembering how long it took for those aerograms to arrive — it was harder to nourish global relationships compared with today .....but no less valuable. Tacker had a direct experience with Nigeria, and in ways he owned it for himself. When he got back home, besides managing his dad‘s grocery store, he listen to the BBC radio specifically to get all the news he could about Nigeria and he even bought his very first record by an African American musician: Ray Charles.
Tracker was definitely “swimming between worlds” when he return home to his white side of the neighborhood.
I often felt that Tacker was carrying the world on his shoulders. I admired him...and thought he was a mensch of a young man.

Gaines Townson is African American. Tacker first meets him when he sells him a bottle of milk for a quarter. An unspoken bond develops between them after a disgusting incident.
Gaines grew up with racial bigotry all around him .... but went to church and learned about civil disobedience and speaking to people about nonviolence.
It doesn’t matter to me how many times I read about an activists in the civil rights movement civil rights - be at Martin Luther King, or Rosa Parks... The struggle for justice is still not over, so I allow myself to be jaded or arrogant as to “oh I’ve read these civil rights stories a dozen times”.
GOOD STORYTELLING ALLOWS FOR THE HEART TO CONTINUE OPENING ON IMPORTANT TOPICS..... THIS BOOK DOES THAT!

And then there is Kate Monroe.... The girl fixed herself a pimento cheese sandwich. You can laugh now. I’ve never eaten a pimento-cheese sandwich in my life....
Do people like those little ‘red’ things? lol
Being more serious....(or not),... as this review is already much too long....
Kate has her own inner-conflicting messages going on inside her head when we first meet her too.
At least James - her college -pre-med doctor boyfriend and she ‘stop’ their letter writing before the book ends..... (you’ll see). Every girl has been teased with the perfect ‘catch’ at least once in her life ( mine was the son of Bank of America) -but when the heart won’t go there - it won’t go there.

THIS IS A GREAT ENJOYABLE READ - THOUGHT PROVOKING with GORGEOUS PROSE!
“So much could shift on small sentences, just a word, just the verb tense”.

This would be a terrific book for High School kids to read too.....so don’t leave our bright students out. Young minds will enjoy this novel- as well as old farts like me.


Whew.....Yikes....nothing retired about this review- forgive me if it was too long.
I ENJOYED IT! Beautiful book cover too. I’d love to own the physical book.
Now....for those phone calls and messages I owe everyone....’soon’!!!

Thank You Netgalley, Berkley Publishing Group, and Elaine Neil Orr

Swimming between Worlds is told through the perspectives of Tacker and Kate, living in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on the cusp of the civil rights movement. Tacker and Kate are young adults reeling from painful past experiences, each living on their own and starting out in careers as creative professionals. Tacker studies as an architect and earns a chance to help build a school in Nigeria, where he experiences discrimination as a minority and is kicked out of the program in shame. Tacker returns to Winston-Salem and realizes the same attitudes exist at home against the African Americans there. He misses Nigeria and is unsure of how to navigate the professional networks in Winston-Salem, especially since he wants to influence deeply ingrained beliefs there about integration. He is reacquainted with Kate, whom he attended high school with. She is grieving the loss of both parents and finding her own influence as a local photographer.

The author uses their budding relationship as a contrast against the simmering racial tensions of that time. Kate and Tacker's courtship is sweet and fairly innocent for young adults with their own apartments. They weren't rebels in that respect, just ordinary people reflecting the accepted social rules of their time. The way they dated reflected a simpler time. However, these ordinary people started to feel unsettled about the accepted social rules regarding integration, and therein lies the conflict of the book. This book examines what happened when those ordinary people started wrestling with their consciences.