A choppy, calculated Channel adventure in "The Great Swim"

"The Great Swim"

by Gavin Mortimer

Walker & Co., 336 pp., $24.95

Twenty-one miles of cold choppy water. The channel separating England and France has historically challenged the elite distance swimmer. Until 1926, no female swimmer had successfully crossed the English Channel, though some made brave attempts, including 18-year-old Gertrude Ederle, who made her first try in 1925.

The following year, Ederle, three other American women, British citizen Mercedes Gleitze and others set their sights on being the first woman to cross the English Channel.

In "The Great Swim," Gavin Mortimer re-creates the race and the times. What he does best is show how a handful of U.S. newspapers and their journalists created a public frenzy surrounding the event. The American press proved that photos of women in swimsuits did sell newspapers.

Using archival press reports and interviews, Mortimer recalls the America of the 1920s and the place of American women of that era. Flappers who bobbed their hair and shortened their skirts were looked down on. Women were considered the weaker sex. Still, the lure of competition and the lust for the distinction of an American achieving a "first"captivated readers.

Mortimer provides background for each U.S. competitor. A New Yorker whose father owned a butcher shop, Ederle brought to the channel her experience as a serious swimmer and the bravado of youth: "I want to be the first woman to swim from France to England." She was hired to write an exclusive column during her training for the Chicago Tribune-Daily News syndicate.

Clarabelle Barrett, another New Yorker, was interested in money, not fame. She needed to pay for singing lessons to achieve her dream of becoming a professional singer. Barrett was part of a national movement to get American female swimmers into the Olympic Games.

Lillian Cannon, of Baltimore, used an 11-hour swim in Chesapeake Bay to train for the channel crossing. She wrote a chatty column for the Baltimore Sun, helping newspapers fuel a rivalry between her and Ederle.

Mille Gade grew up in Denmark, moved to New York and quickly became head swimming instructor at the Harlem YMCA. In the channel frenzy, Gade promoted herself as the swimming mother of two.

All the channel swimmers had separate trainers, support staff and calculators of the best tide and weather conditions. Each picked a time to attempt a crossing based on advice from trainers. Cannon was the first American to attempt the crossing that summer of 1926. She failed, but turned out to cheer on Ederle when she made her attempt days later.

The book's cover photograph of Ederle wearing a swim cap and a smile announces the winner to all readers. And although Mortimer's overuse of partial quotes and clips makes his story choppy, in his re-creation of Ederle's crossing you can't help but feel cold, wet and exhausted. Ederle overcame bad weather and an unexpected tide change to win, prompting her trainer William Burgess to exclaim, "No man or woman ever made such a swim. It is past human understanding." In fact, Ederle's time — 14 hours and 39 minutes — beat the male record by a full two hours. Her triumph was as an athlete, no asterisk for gender.

Mortimer quotes writer Heywood Broun on Ederle's crossing: "When Gertrude Ederle struck out from France she left behind her a world which has believed for a great many centuries that woman is the weaker vessel ... And when her toes touched the sands of England, she stepped out of the water and into a brand-new world."