Tough Girl in the Jam
by Larry Loebell
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Pub Date Jul 19 2019 | Archive Date Jul 24 2019
Sunbury Press, Inc. | Milford House Press
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Description
Set in the fast and furious world of women’s professional roller derby, Tough Girl in the Jam is a novel about sports, strength, and sacrifice. Nina is the lead Jammer on the Philly Freedoms. Her team is practicing for a championship bout. Her new girlfriend, Rachel, is her biggest fan. As Nina and Rachel move toward a deeper commitment and start to contemplate the shape of their lives together, Nina’s estranged father falls ill. Nina’s mother pressures Nina to donate a kidney to save him. Rachel knows that agreeing will end Nina’s derby career, and will alter their lives and plans. Each woman grapples with what it means to commit herself to a life with the other, and how their upbringings and families-of-origin impact their actions and expectations in the present. A life-threatening crisis for Nina’s father on the day of the Freedoms’ championship bout forces Nina to make the toughest play of her life. Knowing the possible consequences for herself, her father, and Rachel, she must choose the course she will take into the future. Like life itself, Tough Girl in the Jam is sometimes comic, sometimes serious, but always surprising.
Available Editions
| ISBN | 9781620063200 |
| PRICE | $16.95 (USD) |
Featured Reviews
Joc A, Reviewer
This is a superbly told story about a semi-professional roller derby skater, her girlfriend, their relationship and a kidney. In the two months leading up to the championship roller derby bout everything starts changing for Nina and Rachel. Nina’s focus is on the derby. She eats, sleeps and lives for the practices. Rachel, who has been living with her for nearly a year, isn’t really sleeping and takes the step of finding a therapist. When Nina’s father goes into renal failure, difficult decisions need to be made and they will affect everyone involved.
Essentially, this is a novel about relationships: Nina and Rachel’s relationship with each other, their relationship to the sport, their relationships with their respective parents (and each other’s) and Rachel’s relationship with her therapist. It portrays realistic people with flawed behaviour. Written in first person from both Nina and Rachel’s points of view, the story is given so much more depth with the addition of therapist’s notes and journal entries.
I loved the portrayal of how subtly complicated relationships can be. The words that are unspoken but linger in the back of one’s mind, the way one can change behaviour or act differently to accommodate for one’s partner and how one never really knows what one’s partner is thinking unless it is actually said out loud. The ethical dilemma of whether or not to donate a kidney was thought-provoking and had me spinning round in circles so I can only imagine how difficult it must be for someone to have to make that decision.
I didn’t really know what roller derby was before this novel so I did a little research but I needn’t have. The sport, it’s history and how it works, is well-explained and really interesting. I hadn’t realised that it is a full contact sport organised and played by women. It’s definitely something I’d like to see live.
I was engaged throughout and while it is about two women in a relationship, it is not a romance.
Book received from Netgalley and Sunbury Press, Inc for an honest review.
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