Four siblings grow up emotionally unattended in a rich family in Florida and then go off to different corners of the world to make their own way --- Jenn to a life of martyred motherhood, Jude to corporate lawyerdom, Fred to a midlist writer’s hell, and George, the youngest, to living as a fat man with a little boy’s heart.

When their mother dies of a stroke in the middle of running (they're a very athletic family), the siblings come back together, some unwillingly, to take care of their dad and rediscover their bond. But there are secrets under the table, and they are all about to come out, fully formed, to haunt and disrupt any possible family unity. Will they pass THE FLOAT TEST, or will they sink? Lynn Steger Strong’s new book looks at the post-COVID world of isolation and fear through the survivors’ new ways of approaching life.

"THE FLOAT TEST is a mixed bag of emotional ups and downs, which perhaps makes it the most realistic of family stories."

Right up front, it must be mentioned that the book is narrated by Jude, the corporate lawyer. Having a narrator is one thing, but the way that she discusses her personal situation while talking about the individual lives of her siblings seems ill-advised, stilted and confusing. Jenn, the maternal sibling, would have been a better choice. But then Strong throws in a twist, explaining that Jude’s story is not all that it seems. THE FLOAT TEST is an easygoing read, but Strong takes a few kicks at the plot that makes it a little darker and less tenable than originally expected. Oh yeah, and then there’s the mystery gun found in the departed’s underwear drawer.

There are so many stories, so many lives drawn and dissected, that work against the gentle meandering tone of the prose. The gun story, the divorces of all but one of the siblings, their father’s new life, the past and all that didn’t happen, the living, the dead and the expectant --- there are a lot of journeys to follow, and Strong may have given us one too many. As we all know, the jumble of every day when your life is blessed and populated with so many souls is hard to corral, and Strong works hard to do just that. As the stories play themselves out, it is clear that the family’s individual paths are more criss-crossed than any of them had truly realized for quite some time. There is nothing like a tragedy to bring a family back to its core togetherness, for better or for worse.

One of the most important of all the relationships in the novel turns out to be the one that Fred has with her grad school mentor. Tess and her cancer journey becomes the focus of Fred’s third book, the one that wins her a PEN/Faulkner Award and convinces her that this writing thing is a good move. The story of Fred and Tess, their husbands and New York City goes a long way in exploring the difficult dynamics that are Fred, as expressed and examined by Jude.

THE FLOAT TEST is a mixed bag of emotional ups and downs, which perhaps makes it the most realistic of family stories. Life is messy, and COVID made it even more so. The post-pandemic world forces us to look at so many things in a different way, reveling in the madness instead of being beaten by it, celebrating what we have instead of wanting what we don’t have. Strong is a writer who understands what a gift that all is --- the craziness, the togetherness, the separateness, the regrets, the wins, the losses. Sink or swim, she and her struggling protagonists are alive. Fully, ridiculously alive.