Lynn Steger Strong’s latest novel arrives like a humid Florida storm—oppressive, inevitable, and surprisingly cleansing. The Float Test plunges readers into the sticky aftermath of loss, where four adult siblings navigate the treacherous waters of family loyalty, personal betrayal, and the suffocating weight of unspoken truths. Set against the backdrop of a climate-changed Florida summer, Strong crafts a narrative that feels both intimately personal and universally resonant.
A Family Portrait in Fragments
The Kenner siblings gather in the wake of their mother’s sudden death, each carrying their own particular brand of damage. Strong introduces us to this fractured family with surgical precision, revealing their dynamics through carefully observed moments rather than heavy exposition. Jenn, the eldest, channels her grief into obsessive control, organizing and cleaning with the manic energy of someone afraid to sit still long enough to feel. Fred, the writer sister, has stopped writing entirely—a creative paralysis that mirrors her emotional state. Jude, the middle child and former corporate lawyer, harbors a deep resentment toward Fred that threatens to poison any chance of reconciliation. George, the baby of the family, floats through life with the particular aimlessness of someone who’s never had to grow up.
The genius of Strong’s character work lies in how she reveals each sibling’s essential nature through their smallest actions and observations. When George counts his father’s drinks or when Jenn dumps her four-year-old’s dinner in the trash after a tantrum, we understand these people completely. They are flawed, complicated, and recognizably human in ways that make their pain feel immediate and real.
The Weight of Words and Silence
The novel’s central conflict emerges gradually, like a photograph developing in a darkroom. The rift between Jude and Fred stems from Fred’s publication of a story in The New Yorker—a story that mine the intimate details of Jude’s life, including a deeply personal abortion, for literary material. Strong handles this betrayal with remarkable nuance, avoiding easy moral judgments while exploring the complex relationship between art and ethics, between love and exploitation.
This conflict raises uncomfortable questions about the responsibility artists bear toward the people who provide the raw material for their work. Fred’s defense—that she wrote from love, that fiction transforms reality—rings hollow against Jude’s very real pain. The novel suggests that good intentions cannot erase harmful impact, a lesson that extends far beyond the realm of literature.
Climate and Character in Conversation
Strong weaves environmental themes throughout the narrative with a light but persistent touch. The oppressive heat serves as more than mere atmosphere; it becomes a character in its own right, pressing down on the siblings as they struggle to reconnect. The dying river, choked with algae blooms, mirrors the family’s own toxic dynamics. When teenage Brooke writes her college essay about environmental destruction, her words carry weight because they emerge from lived experience rather than abstract concern.
The author’s treatment of climate change feels organic rather than didactic. The vultures circling overhead, the mangroves that can’t be replanted, the excessive heat advisories—these details accumulate to create a sense of a world under siege, perfectly complementing the family’s own state of crisis.
Structural Brilliance and Narrative Voice
Strong demonstrates remarkable control over her material, alternating between present-day action and carefully chosen flashbacks that illuminate character motivation without feeling forced. The novel’s structure mirrors its themes—just as the family struggles to stay afloat, the narrative itself moves between past and present like someone treading water, sometimes sinking below the surface before emerging again for air.
The author’s prose style deserves particular praise. Strong writes with a deceptive simplicity that masks considerable sophistication. Her sentences have a musical quality, building rhythm through repetition and variation. When she describes Fred’s relationship with David or captures the particular dynamics of sibling rivalry, her language feels both precise and emotionally authentic.
Where the Novel Falters
Despite its many strengths, The Float Test occasionally struggles under the weight of its own ambitions. Some plot elements—particularly the gun subplot and its rather dramatic resolution—feel slightly manufactured, as if Strong felt compelled to provide external action to match the internal turmoil. The symbolism sometimes becomes heavy-handed, particularly in the repeated metaphors around floating and drowning.
Additionally, while the novel excels at capturing family dynamics, some of the romantic relationships feel underdeveloped. Fred and David’s marriage, crucial to understanding Fred’s emotional state, never quite comes alive on the page. Similarly, George’s infatuation with Maeve reads more as plot device than genuine character development.
Literary Lineage and Contemporary Relevance
Strong’s work sits comfortably alongside other contemporary family sagas that explore the intersection of personal and political. Readers of Commonwealth by Ann Patchett or The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney will find familiar territory here, though Strong brings her own particular intensity to the material. Her previous novels, Want and Flight, established her as a writer particularly adept at capturing economic anxiety and family dysfunction, skills she deploys to great effect in this latest work.
The novel also engages with urgent contemporary questions about artistic responsibility in an age of social media and instant publication. Fred’s betrayal of Jude feels particularly resonant in our current moment, when the boundaries between public and private have become increasingly blurred.
The Power of Imperfect Love
Ultimately, The Float Test succeeds because it refuses to offer easy resolution or false comfort. The Kenner siblings don’t magically heal their relationships through shared grief; instead, they learn to navigate their complicated love with slightly more grace and understanding. The novel’s final image—of the family helping their father float in the ocean—provides a perfect metaphor for this hard-won progress. They support each other tentatively, knowing that letting go means risking drowning, but understanding that true buoyancy requires both trust and courage.
Strong has written a novel that honors the messiness of family life without romanticizing it. The Float Test reminds us that love alone isn’t enough to heal all wounds, but it might be enough to keep us afloat until we learn to swim on our own.
Similar Reads for Literary Fiction Enthusiasts
For readers drawn to The Float Test, consider these compelling family dramas:
- The Dutch House by Ann Patchett – Another sibling story exploring family mythology and forgiveness
- The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo – A multigenerational saga about secrets and relationships
- Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng – Examines privilege, art, and moral complexity
- One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware – Though a thriller, it shares themes of childhood loyalty and adult consequences
- Domestic Fiction by Matthew Vollmer – Short stories exploring similar themes of family and betrayal
The Float Test establishes Lynn Steger Strong as a significant voice in contemporary literary fiction, offering readers a deeply satisfying exploration of how families break apart and, sometimes, find their way back together.
