The first novel I ever reviewed was The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, and I did not love it because all the challenges in the novel arose from the situation, not the psyches of the main characters themselves. But I did like her recent novel, The Flight Portfolio, and also her first book, the short story collection How to Breathe Underwater, which included some beautifully-told stories from the perspective of children, like this one, in which a girl tries to get over bereavement by learning to swim.
First published in the Yale Review, Vol 91, Issue 3, July 2003. Collected in How to Breathe Underwater, Knopf 2003, which is now available as a Vintage Contemporary, 2005
A Personal Anthology 