Chasing Air
A Novel
Chasing Air is a warm novel about a decades-long search for personal empowerment, transformation, athleticism, and self-acceptance.
A rearward-gazing novel narrated from California in 2020, at the height of of the pandemic, Caroline Prince’s entertaining semiautobiographical novel Chasing Air is about a daring, spirited woman with a passion for speed and physicality.
In the midst of COVID-19, Allison’s husband Tom is a frontline physician who treats infected patients. To distract herself from worrying about his health and safety, she reflects on her formative years in rural Georgia. There, she was cared for by her churchgoing mother, Emma, and her salesman father, Doug, in a racially charged environment.
Court-ordered busing forces Allison to attend an all-Black high school, pushing her to recognize her white privilege and navigate her shifting social landscape. Her reactions to the clothing, music, and food of her classmates also expose her naivete and teenage petulance. Lillian, a Black student who antagonizes Allison, also illustrates the traumatic consequences of systemic racism, while references to activists result in additional historical and sociological perspective.
Their storylines layered and satisfying, the novel’s five parts illustrate Allison’s decisiveness and self-awareness, exploring her empowerment, self-transformation, athleticism, and acceptance. They also situate Allison within the historical context of her time, showing how racism and segregation in the 1970s, sexism and gender roles in the 1980s and 1990s, and advancing technology in the 2000s influenced her ideas, relationships, and ambition. Throughout, her identity is centered by her sense of adventure, with her seeking a “fresh kind of exhilaration” and a “sense of freedom” that “she knew she needed.”
The prose includes elegant depictions of beauty and nature, establishing the varied settings well. Further, the story moves at a steady, deliberate pace, shifting between vignettes from Allison’s life to form a full picture of who she is. She has moments of happiness, including during her marriages, but there are also peeks into challenges like her flourishing career as a sales representative, her challenges with motherhood, her shifting sense of identity, her decisions to hike Mount Everest and to excel at martial arts, and her experiences of grief, loss, and fearfulness. Her optimism and determination throughout make the novel’s instances of emotional vulnerability and indecisiveness affecting; in her mind, she seeks to be “untethered,” “unburdened,” and “free,” while outwardly she projects resolve. Both highs and lows are rendered with grace throughout.
An emotive and gratifying coming-of-age novel, Chasing Air is about self-discovery and courage in the pursuit of personal fulfillment.
Reviewed by
Amy O'Loughlin
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
