Flat Water Tuesday
Read Flat Water Tuesday Online
Authors: Ron Irwin
Complete Praise for Ron Irwin’s
Flat Water Tuesday
“Irwin debuts with movingly rendered literary fiction about love and loss, youth and maturity, ambition and its cost … a powerful study of the muddled, stumbling steps from youth into adulthood.… Irwin’s descriptions are observant and intimate—readers become immersed in the Darwinian cruelty of the young reflected against the loneliness of a lost, jaded teacher, then confront a man finding purpose, and close the book after bathing in a deeply evocative, hope-filled conclusion. An elegy to love and loss and reconciliation.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)
“All you ever wanted to know about the world of competitive rowing is contained in the pages of Ron Irwin’s new novel, whose hero is not only a prodigious oarsman but the lover of two memorably realized women.”
—J. M. Coetzee
“In taut, muscular prose Irwin details the punishing training regimen of the God Four, a crew of competitive oarsmen who commit themselves body and soul to the pain and glory of their sport.
Flat Water Tuesday
is a powerful consideration of the exhilarating love of competition and the high cost of victory. Ron Irwin has written a propulsive, heart-stopping story in the tradition of such sporting classics as Alan Sillitoe’s
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner
and Bernard Malamud’s
The Natural
.
Flat Water Tuesday
is a world-class champion of a novel.”
—Amber Dermont,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Starboard Sea
“A gripping read. If you’ve ever marveled at the fluidity of a quadruple scull cutting through water in first light, and wondered what makes its four-man motor work, this book will provide the answers, and then some. Irwin is adept at revealing the tricky bonds between rowers, and the way those bonds can shape—and misshape—a life.”
—Tom McNeal, author of
To Be Sung Underwater
“
Flat Water Tuesday
is the best debut novel I’ve read this year, a compulsively readable dark drama that weaves multiple story lines toward one marvelous denouement. Ron Irwin writes with confidence and skill and authenticity in this exploration of identity and the poisonous fuel of ambition. It will call other books—
A Separate Peace
,
The Art of Fielding
—to mind but stands alone as an original and powerful work. I’ll read anything Irwin writes after this.”
—Michael Koryta,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Prophet
“In Ron Irwin’s capable hands, past and present fuse into a haunting meditation on class, guilt, and the perils of victory. You don’t need to have set foot in a scull to be swept along by this affecting book.
Flat Water Tuesday
is the debut of a deft and talented new voice.”
—Eric Puchner, author of the Pen/Faulkner Award finalist
Model Home
“With echoes of
A Separate Peace,
Ron Irwin’s wonderful
Flat Water Tuesday
is a masterful coming-of-age story about making one’s place in the world, about the sacrifices love asks of us and of the rewards it may give us, about friendship and responsibility and so many other aspects of being human. It’s compelling, moving, and often heartbreaking—all of the things we want good novels to be.”
—Joe Schuster, author of
The Might Have Been
“The opening scene of Ron Irwin’s lovely debut novel left me breathless. Irwin writes astutely about finding one’s place in the world, testing the limits of our endurance, and how we find the strength to carry on.”
—Amanda Eyre Ward, author of
Close Your Eyes
“Ron Irwin’s rowing tale—
Flat Water Tuesday
—brings to life a rite of passage that is complex, insightful, and stirring. Inside the gunnels of the rowing shell secrets are kept. Powerful fathers produce legendary sons, and legends arise that haunt some forever. His artistry weaves heroism, rivalry, romance, tragedy, and raw life together inside the ethereal dynamics of a boarding school crew—not any crew, but the ‘God Four’—which, in the end, leaves all to wrestle with the reckoning that God was indeed watching. Written in the tradition of
The Dead Poets Society
, Ron Irwin’s story is a must for anyone who loves rowing, sports, or just a darn good read.”
—Susan Saint Sing, member of the 1993 U.S. National Rowing Team and author of
The Wonder Crew
“
Flat Water Tuesday
is more than just a wonderful coming-of-age novel, it’s a gripping and beautifully drawn portrait of a man coming to grips with his demons. His unforgettable story will take you through heartbreak and back, where resilience can teach you not just about achievement, but also about love.”
—Elizabeth Percer, author of
An Uncommon Education
“A biting, beautiful novel about the cost of winning and the lessons of loss. In Robert Carrey, Ron Irwin has created a character of precision and depth, a man who must learn that he cannot scull through life alone.”
—Jennifer Miller, author of
The Year of the Gadfly
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.
This novel is for my mother, Donna H. Irwin, who told me to get it all down in writing.
The Fenton School believes that the sport of rowing boats encourages Discipline and Fellowship and builds young men of Good Character.
—
Letter to parents, The Fenton School, 1905
The Fenton School reserves a limited number of places for students who wish to take a postgraduate year in a boarding school environment. A postgraduate year of study at Fenton is a repeated senior year of high school that offers, in many cases, more rigor and discipline than the average student has become accustomed to at home. Postgraduate students at Fenton are often attracted to our extensive sports program, and each year they play important roles on our varsity football, hockey, and rowing teams. The postgraduate student receives a certificate of attendance upon successful completion of their year at the Fenton School.
Extensive financial aid is granted to PG candidates on a needs basis.
—The Fenton School Handbook
(current edition)
Behind every beautiful thing, there’s been some kind of pain.
—Bob Dylan
CONTENTS
Mr. Rob Carrey
c/o National Geographic Television
1145 17th Street NW
Washington D.C. 20036–4688
Dear Rob,
It’s been fifteen years since we last saw each other, one month to the day. Can you believe it?
I’m sure you wish it was longer.
In six weeks it will be our fifteenth reunion at good old Fenton School. A milestone! And they want us all to come on back and reminisce. I am positive you have no plans to attend. But I’m sitting here trying to tie up loose ends. Trying to knock off unfinished business I thought would go away by itself.
When you are rehabbing you are told to get in touch with people from your past. To apologize for the things you did while you were hammered. They give you a little model letter you can send if you don’t know what to say. Some people in my group just photocopied it about a hundred times and sent it on to all the people whose lives they screwed up on the way down. My group leader insists that you can’t just send it via e-mail. I don’t know why. E-mail appears less genuine, I guess.
I have the letter here in front of me. It says I ought to tell you that thanks to some spiritual principles, I have been able to get my life on track. I don’t hold with all that about “spiritual principles.” But you do get some time to think when you’ve lost your job. When your wife leaves you. At the end of the letter you’re supposed to tell the recipient how long you’ve been sober. In my particular case that’s about three and a half weeks, give or take.
Anyways, Rob, I have nothing to apologize to you about. I have about ten more people on my sorry list (second smallest list in the group, I kept track) but you are a guy who does not need my groveling.