she initially had some trouble separating some of the characters from their real life counterparts, "two-thirds of the way through she was able to let go of the real people and embrace the characters. When she finished the book she called me in tears and said it was lovely." The professor teaching the workshop, Tom De Haven, introduced Beanland to an agent with Janklow & Nesbit Associates. After several drafts were completed, the agent shopped the final draft to several publishing houses. They eventually chose to sell the book to Simon & Schuster in January 2019. Publication Florence Adler Swims Forever was first published in hardback and ebook format on July 7, 2020, through Simon & Schuster. An audiobook adaptation was released through Simon & Schuster Audio and is narrated by the ensemble cast of Jonathan Davis, Tim Paige, Carly Robins, Jonathan Todd Ross, Tara Sands, Jesse Vilinsky, Gabra Zackman, and the author, Rachel Beanland. Reception Critical reception was largely positive and common elements of praise centered around the book's handling of tragedy and family drama. A reviewer for the Jewish Book Council praised the accuracy of Beanland's depiction of a Jew trying to flee pre-war Germany and for being one of "not many stories depicting Jewish immigrants already living for a generation in America in 1934". The New York Times's Allegra Goodman noted that while the book had some limitations, "Beanland’s novel draws the reader in. The situation she describes is poignant and the characters she develops win us over with their private grief." References External links 2020 American novels 2020 debut novels Nazis in fiction Immigration in fiction Simon & Schuster books Atlantic City, New Jersey in fiction Novels set in New Jersey Novels set in the 1930s Fiction set in 1934 Jewish American novels Third-person narrative novels