A short but impactful story that very well deserves to be longlisted for awards, and the various accolades it’s been given. The Most by Jessica Anthony is set in 1950s America and tells us the story of a housewife who goes swimming in the pool at the apartment complex she lives in, but then won’t come out. It’s a book that’s perfect to read in one sitting, it really captures your attention. The language is very effective and fits the tone perfectly.

“Kathy’s having a swim, that’s all.”

This books packs a lot into a few pages. It sums up a 1950’s marriage and how hard it was for a woman to step outside of the stereotypical role.

The story takes place in one afternoon, but flashes back over several years of marriage and ends in an ultimatum.

I think this book is underrated. The average score on Goodreads is 3.34, but I was captivated by the flawed characters and the immersive writing. The audiobook narration was excellent.

In less than 150 pages, Anthony’s novel packs a punch. Set in 1957, Kathleen is a suburban housewife and mother, but in her collegiate days, she was a tennis champion. The eponymous title is for her killer swing, called “the most” by her influential coach. Those glory days are long forgotten to all but her. Her husband, Virgil, is a good-looking insurance salesman who can’t seem to close any policies. Too busy going to jazz clubs and picking up women, he has downsized his family from their charming single-family home in Rhode Island to a run-down apartment at a complex in Delaware.
On one unseasonably warm day, perhaps the last one of autumn, Kathleen decides to send her family on to church without her and go into the communal pool. All the apartment dwellers in the semi-circle shaped complex can look out their windows and see her in her red bathing suit. It is from that perspective that the narrative unfolds.
Kathleen and Virgil were wed nine years previously. Is marriage the place dreams go to die? Kathleen contemplates Laika, the doomed dog aboard the Russian launch of Sputnik 2 that keeps scrolling on the news. The fate of Laika haunts her, and she ponders how she arrived in this pool, now mother of two and wife of Virgil. Perfect for book clubs, readers will be captivated by this small cast of very real characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Company for this Advanced Readers Copy of The Most by Jessica Anthony!

This quick read was captivating and moving. It was weird but in a good way. An interesting exploration of gender and motherhood in the 1960s.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. On an abnormally warm fall day in 1957, housewife Kathleen Beckett gets in the pool and refuses to come out. Over the course of a day, told from the opposing points of view of Kathleen and her husband Virgil, their marriage comes to a point of no return. Reminiscent of Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and Michael Cunningham's The Hours, the prose is incisive and the story spare. A fast and compelling read.

For fans of Challengers—find out what's beneath the surface when, on an unseasonably warm November day, Kathleen Beckett decides to go swimming in the community pool and refuses to get out.

For such a short book with a minimal plot, this novella packs a lot into it! It's November in 1957, and Kathleen decides to take a very long swim, much to the confusion of her husband, Virgil, and their two sons. As Kathleen swims in their rundown apartment's swimming pool, neighbors also grow increasingly curious. The story twists and turns between Kathleen and Virgil's current perspectives and backstories that lead up to this fateful day. It becomes oddly worrisome how long Kathleen swims in the pool. Will she ever get out? Why is she swimming for this long? The story is a slice of life, unspoken inner dialogues, complexities of marriage, and reasons for parental choices. A series of moments have built up to this day of never-ending swimming that the perplexed reader is dropped into. This atmospheric tension creates a truly unique literary experience, expertly interwoven to a pivotal and highly reflective ending. Definitely recommend.

I know everyone is reading Liars (after reading All Fours after reading You Could Make This Place Beautiful after reading the Outline trilogy), but I think a lot lot lot is lost when things are talked about as “divorce novels” or as a preamble to the divorce-as-enlightenment discourse (written about smartly by KJM here). Can I recommend, then, Jessica Anthony’s The Most, a sharp and spicy novella written (I assume) with Cheever’s “The Swimmer” in mind, about Kathleen, a ‘50s wife and former tennis champ who one day gets into a pool, and won’t get out. Her husband Virgil is alarmed, and while Kathleen’s skin raisins and blanches and flakes off in the kidney bean of the apartment-complex pool, Anthony gives us the who-they-could-have-been of Virgil and Kathleen, and glints of the ways they have and have not been honest with each other in their marriage.

Here’s a short grab that I found funny and gives a flavor—Kathleen is in the pool, obviously:

“She sets the base of her cranium so it rested on the bullnose coping. Using her neck as the fulcrum this way, she bore the full weight of her entire body, which suddenly rose to the surface of the pool like a floating corpse.”

A crossroads of a marriage - Kathleen and Virgil have been married for many years. They've moved, had children, and are experiencing the stresses but also settling in of a marriage.

But this isn't an average day. Secrets are coming up to the surface and each person in this marriage will need to decide what they will do - with both their own secret and with the others they learn.

This was a bit of a confusing read. It's told in flashbacks and now, as Kathleen remembers who she was before marriage and tries to decide if she is okay with who she is now. Virgil struggles to understand what is going on with his wife now but also with understanding what this might mean for his life and their path forward and who he was before. The ending was interesting and I find myself curious as to why it all happening now and where the story was going.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

This book was such a pleasant surprise this year. What really drove my enjoyment was thr characters— they’re quirky, human and nuanced.

This was a short and enjoyable book! It kind of gave me Revolutionary Road vibes. The characters were complex and interesting, but I do think that it being such a short book meant that you didn't care too much about the character, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Thank you NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for this ARC!

I just wanted things to get MUCH crazier for her and needed more feminine rage here beyond a long swim.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the ARC of The Most. Unfortunately, it just wasn't my cup of tea. This was a pretty short story about Kathleen Beckett, a mother and wife in 1957. I think I would have liked this if there was more to it - I did like how we relived the past with both Kathleen and Virgil. We are able to see both perspectives of how they met, their marriage, the dysfunction under the surface of their marriage. I just didn't feel like I had enough time in this short novella to really know and care about either character.

Mesmerizing cover? Uneasy 1950s marriage? All takes place in one afternoon? Short enough to read in one sitting?

Oh that sounds like a five star read to me!

Kathleen was once a tennis champion with all the potential in the world but she's now mostly identified by her role as a suburban wife and mom. Only she's found her old red bathing suit and she's taken to the community pool! And refuses to come out.

Such intrigue!

Of course I loved this one. By the last two chapters I was hanging on every single word, completely riveted. Anthony does such a fantastic job of building tension even in the most (seemingly) mundane of environments.

The chapters switch back and forth between Kathleen and her husband, Virgil which provides such interesting context as you're reading. We've got flashbacks and all kinds of goodies that just add to the story.

Want a short lit fic book with fascinating characters that explores the underbelly of marriage? Pick this one up, for sure!

Thank you to Net Galley, the author, and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This just didn't work for me. If I'm being honest, it felt very reminiscent of Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road, without bringing much else to the table.

The premise was solid -- Kathleen is dissatisfied with the life she and her husband, Virgil, have created for themselves. One afternoon, she decides to get into the apartment complex's pool and is unwilling to get out. As someone who also hates getting out of pools, I was intrigued. However, this didn't become the sort of unhinged narrative I was bracing myself for.

Rather, it was focused more around the fact that these two individuals are terrible partners to one another. While I can appreciate the small bits of commentary that landed, I wasn't moved by any of it. The characters were dull. The situation was boring. And I had higher expectations for it than I probably should have.

This was a very quick read for me and I can't say I was bored, but I also can't say this book said much of anything. I feel like slice-of-life literary fiction that isn't *about* anything is very in vogue recently, and I can get down with that sometimes. But those books do actually have something to say. Here, I didn't particularly like either of the characters or feel like I got to know or sympathize with them, and there wasn't much of a plot to fall back on.

At the end of the day, I didn't feel too let down because this book wasn't that long, but I probably won't be going around recommending this to anyone.

I tried multiple times to get into this novel, but the jumps in time were disorienting and the plot felt lackluster and empty. I was hoping for more of a surrealist novel, perhaps. Or maybe even more of a character study of the community, rather than solely following the husband and wife. Nothing about this novel felt revolutionary.

The book was seriously so amazing! It was set over eight hours, and it took longer than that to read, and I just wanted to speed through it! It was poignant, it was exciting, and it was heartfelt.

(Thanks to @littlebrown #gifted.) Novellas often don’t work well for me, but that was NOT the case with 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗠𝗢𝗦𝗧 by Jessica Anthony. This slim novel tells the story of Kathleen and Virgil, a married couple with two young sons. It’s November of 1957 and the launch of Sputnik 2 is in the news. On an unseasonably warm Sunday, Virgil and their sons go off to church, but Kathleen begs off. When they leave, she slips into the pool at their apartment complex. There she stays hour after hour.⁣
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There’s a push and pull going on between Virgil and Kathleen. As the story moves on, and Kathleen refuses to leave the pool, we learn about the dark secrets each holds. Secrets that could upend their lives… or save them. It all depends on who can play them better. I found this to be an extremely engaging, extremely unique read. It was a beautifully told story of a marriage on the brink. Anthony’s storytelling make its place on 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟺 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘈𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘍𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘓𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵 so well deserved. At 144 pages, you can read it in a single afternoon and I think you’ll be glad you did. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫