[.ca] All the Sundays Yet to Come (ISBN 0316099015)

What happens to a dream deferred?:
The author was in two classes with me at Colgate and it was a great pleasure to know her. She was one of the most popular students at college because she is engaging, charismatic, outgoing and down to earth. Her cult of personality does not really come out in this book. The strongest part of this book is the coming of age element. Kathryn was probably always an outspoken, fiercely independent and idealistic individual. Her personal qualities clashed with the expectations of her reserved upper middle class family and the affluent village of Bronxville, NY that she was raised in. Growing up a quasi- outsider, she threw herself into her love for skating where she dreamed of becoming famous. On the ice, she could express herself and achieve the adulation that she longed for and that was missing from the cutthroat and caddy environment she came from. Fast forward through the college years and Kathryn lands a couple of gigs with second tier professional ice skating tours (Ice Capades went belly up). Her little girl dreams of being a glamorous and well loved professional ice skater are squashed by the humiliating aspects of the job. Anorexia and laxatives help the author pass the weekly weigh- in. Her Russian coworkers are violent nymphomaniacs and alcoholics, and the third- world Latin American countries she passes threw have cheesy entertainment tastes. She suffers the indignities of having to wear a chicken costume and porno getups. She is the "ugly doll" in one routine. She works for peanuts and the living conditions of the tour recall images of Sally Struthers relief ads. She is an anonymous circus clown caricature whirling around the rink of a backwater town in South America with 1% body fat. Kathryn goes to the end of the world and her sanity to chase down her dream. It is a surreal image for this sheltered child from an upscale background. In the end, she forges her own identity from the experiences she had on both sides of the tracks. She shuns other people's expectations, becomes comfortable in her own skin and gets on with her life. Kathryn is not unique for having a nasty sibling. I did not empathise with her when she described how cold her mother was growing up or how evil the seventh graders were in her middle school. It is really not that strange for parents to get divorced nowadays (her parents did not). I find it strange also that she abhorred Bronxville and then chose to go to college at an isolated speck of land oozing with J- Crew, web belts and high- end SUV's.

Inspirational:
In her autobiographical first book, All the Sundays Yet to Come, Kathryn Bertine tells the story of how she, once a competitive figure skater performing at the highest levels in the sport, willingly went down the dark alley of anorexia in order to keep her dreams of athletic stardom alive. Bertine recounts the loneliness of her privileged childhood in upstate New York and how she found warmth, acceptance, and room for personal growth at the local ice rink, a semi-enclosed structure where she froze under layers of spandex while training her body and conditioning her mind. It was at the ice rink that she met and nurtured her marvelous alter-ego, Captain Graceful-a superhero for a female athlete, who embodied her goals of strength, poise, resilience, and panache. Bertine writes about the highs and lows of her life with humor and honesty. She skillfully interweaves her days as a teenage athlete with the harsh realities she found on the professional skating circuit in Europe and South America, showing without reserve how an unexamined dream can become a nightmare. Bertine's story recounts the trauma associated with life in an ice show--the degrading weekly weigh-ins that undermined her fragile self-esteem and led her into a life-threatening eating disorder, the bizarre costumes and frivolous routines that trivialized the years she spent training as a competitive skater, and the internal politics and dubious practices of the shows, which included confiscating and locking up skaters' passports and visas and giving preferential treatment to eastern European skaters because their work visas were cheaper than those of their American and Canadian counterparts. And then there are the other skaters. Bertine writes of those who were also chasing their own private dreams, like her best friend from England whose sparkling humor and loyalty anchored Bertine and gave her the courage to try to escape from the show when she was at her lowest point. She writes of those who were caught on the crazy merry-go-round of show business and didn't know how to get off, like the Canadian soloist who was afraid to leave to visit his dying mother because he didn't want the show to replace him. An inspirational look at one athlete's journey, All the Sundays Yet to Come is a wonderful book by a remarkable athlete and gifted writer.

Highly recommend:
As a big fan of figure skating, I ordered this book and was not disappointed. It is well written, funny, candid, and thoroughly enjoyable. Bertine's story is insightful and interesting and certainly drew me in.

Growing up in a Dream World:
Kathryn Bertine is an excellent writer. My mom bought me the book because I grew up in the same town and had swimming lessons with Kathryn's mom...this was in the early 1970's, before she was born. We have never met, and I hope to meet her someday. This saga was inspiring and has motivated me to finally get my life-story down on paper. She has given us a clear story of growing up in a world with mixed messages and stressful expectations. She was determined to reach for her goals and unfortunately it was bittersweet in the end.

Beneath the surface:
On the surface this book is a memoir of a figure skater who does not make it to the Olympics; who instead ends up in a second rate ice show touring South America in sequins and feathers and animal costumes. Her colorful accounts of the tour and her stories of how she got there (fish out of water growing up in a wealthy New England suburb, 4 am practice sessions, her controlling mother, her bipolar brother) are hilarious yet honest in a David Sedaris kind of way. Beneath the surface, however, is a very powerful and profound story. I really couldn't put this book down, primarily due to the author's voice: her passion, her courage, her honesty. Mostly I loved her skillful and subtle transition from zany stories about crazy characters and wild experiences to her painfully honest account of how obsessiveness and the need to be successful led her down a frightening path of self-destruction--and, fortunately, her journey back again. I really loved this book because it was witty and fun and it also made me think and feel. I could relate to a lot which kept me connected and it also had plenty of unique stories that I found interesting and entertaining. An important book for anyone who has ever felt different, was willing to sacrifice nearly everything in order to succeed, or has felt the need to escape their reality, and in running so far away ended up finding themselves.