Gold: A Novel (original 2012; edition 2012)

So unbearably good. The birth scene gave me the shivers and the races were fabulous. I cannot countenance "alright" in published work, though. ( )

I enjoyed Chris Cleave’s early book Little Bee, so I had my eye on this one when I came out. But I read some lukewarm reviews, and from the little bit that I knew about the book (that it was about two Olympic athletes), I wasn’t sure it was for me. But when I found it on audio at my library, I decided to give it a go. The book is about two British Olympic cyclists, Kate and Zoe. The book begins at the 2004 Athens Olympics as Zoe is getting ready to complete. Kate is home in London, watching on television with her baby daughter Sophie. She is clearly disappointed not to be in the spotlight, but as Zoe wins gold, Sophie flashes Kate her first smile, and Kate melts. This scene alone made me love the book. It captured the stress that comes with trying to be a mom and a professional, a stress that I know well. It drew me in immediately.

The story moves forward in time, as Kate and Zoe train for the 2012 London Olympics and Sophie fights leukemia. Cleave also takes us back to when Kate and Zoe first met, gradually weaving the threads together to form a complete picture. Kate and Zoe have a complex relationship, and it is not until we learn all of the backstory that their interactions completely make sense. If I have one complaint with this book, it is that we switch time periods too quickly (although perhaps listening to the book on audio made these transitions more difficult). But in the end, the threads come together to show the complexities of finding success, maintaining relationships, and doing so while being authentic. ( )

Re-read for Staff Picks book club at the library. It was just as good the second time, and I marked just as many quotes (different ones) as the first.

Quotes:
"That there is life; this here is sport. You only need to think about the next ten minutes." (Tom to Zoe, p. 6)

What good did it ever do anyone to ride themselves back to their point of origin? (Kate, 13)

A single day with that family had felt like the whole of her life. She didn't know how they could bear it. There was an insane amount of emotion, but nothing sufficiently concentrated to cry about at any particular second. It was impossible. (Zoe, 31)

This was just how the world was. There were two kinds of people when a light turned red. One kind accelerated, the other kind braked. (62-63)

Bit by bit, race by race, year by year, a girl like Zoe would stay afloat in the sport while Kate slowly sank under the weight of real life. (Tom, 82)

You could almost believe you had raced so hard that you had outrun the past. The sensation was indistinguishable from that of being forgiven. (Zoe, 91)

Freedom made Zoe quicker and sadder than her, and if Kate had the choice she wouldn't trade. Still, she had to work hard sometimes not to feel resentful....it was hard to forget the times Zoe had put the fight before the friendship. Then again, maybe this was how everyone felt. Perhaps everyone struggled with the possessive flaw in human memory that hoarded the episodes you most wanted to let go. Maybe by the time you reached thirty-two, it was a miracle if you could completely forgive your friends. (116)

Was this why nothing came close to touching the raw and inconsolable place inside her? (Zoe, 254)

This was the nature of time: it was a wide, elegant, and gently descending spiral staircase whose last dozen steps were unexpectedly rotten. (Jack, 270)

He knew everything there was to know about making human beings go quicker, but nothing at all about how to make them stop. (Tom, 286)

This was what you learned, after all the racing was over: that the hardest laps were the ones you did after the crowd had gone home. (320)

I listened to Little Bee on CD and loved it. This story, while enthralling, was not quite as good, but still a page-turner, so to speak. ( )

Gold: A Novel by Chris Cleave has sait patiently on my To Be Read shelf for way too long. I selected, thinking it looked like a book that I would like, but then more books found their way in. Finally, today I picked it up and I didn't put it back down until I came to the end.

I like to sum up a book in a phrase. For instance, this is a book about family, or this is a book about competitive sports and so on. That is impossible to do with Gold. This is a story about olympic caliber cyclists. There is Tom, who is long past his prime, and coach to two amazing women. Women who are friends and competitors in more ways than just cycling. The women are Kate, and Zoe and they are breathtaking. The are completely each the opposite of the other in many ways, but they have equal degrees of talent, and fragility. They have powerful bodies, but their lives make their rigid training and competition seem like a walk in the park.

Jack is a cyclist, too. He met both of the women at a youth competition when they were young, and the three of them have shared friendship, love, competition and more ever since that first moment when they had their lives ahead of them, and knew that they could make it to the top. These four people are strong and determined. Nothing they do in any day of any of their lives compares with Zoe. Zoe is eight years old, and she is in a competition of sorts, too. She is trying to stay alive.

Gold is a compelling page turner of a story that will have you running the gamut from tears to fury to exhilaration, and then back around again and again. Nothing and no one in this story is simple or clear. The twists and turns are nothing compared to the emotional upheaval that you will feel as you read. The lines of who is the winner and who loses are blurred in this brilliant novel.

Recommended. ( )