"Fast Girl" is a fast read!
I gave it 5 stars not so much for the story she tells, but for the passionate way she tells it.
It's a breathless ride through a running career that still ranks her as one of America's best-ever middle distance runners, and later through a whirlwind year as an "escort" in Las Vegas, where she ALSO became highly ranked (by an Escort Ranking service!).
From her first race, through 3 Olympic Games (1992, '96, 2000), to her year in Vegas (2012), she always seeks to be the best.
She MUST be--to make her dad, her coaches, and even her home state of Wisconsin proud.
She is always wanting to please others---her parents, coaches, then her "clients", whether in her husband's and her's real estate business, or her call girl clients!
But there are tragedies, and dysfunction, to overcome.
Her older brother Dan commits suicide.
Her best friend Mary Hartzheim (a fellow Wisconsin runner) dies at age 37 of cancer.
Her parents and other siblings remain silent about Dan's mental problemsm thus forcing Suzy into silence about her own battles with what eventually is diagnosed as bi-polar disorder.
(She believes it's depression when her problems first arise.)
She never turns to steroids to make her a better athlete (though she CONSIDERS doing so at one point!), but she does inflict upon herself an eating disorder---bulimia.
She says she's a virgin when she meets future husband Mark Hamilton her freshman year at Wisconsin.
From the beginning, their relationship is loving, but has problems.
Their first several years together are good ones, but after failing to win Gold in the Sydney Olympics, and after a few more years of being a "fast girl", she retires from the sport.
She'd been not only a great runner, but being a beautiful woman, she always had to deal with sometimes sexist attentions from various men.
(She gets a breast reduction because men kept ogling her bouncing breasts as she ran!)
Her husband agrees to a 20th anniversary "threesome" in Vegas, hiring a woman named "Pearl" for the occasion.
It's Suzy's first time with a woman, though she's fantasized about it many times.
She loves it, and soon comes into contact with people who help her become an escort herself, albeit on a part-time basis.
She in fact travels monthly from Wisconsin to Nevada to meet clients, until she decides she wants to move there.
(Mark eventually buys her a condo there---to save on expensive hotel rooms!
Was Mark an enabler?
Yes!
But you get the idea Suzy didn't NEED enabling.
Her own demons---her insecurities---enabled her dangerous adventures.
(In one visit, she and Mark try skydiving just hours before she meets a client for sex! One dangerous adventure isn't enough!)
While one stated symptom of being bi-polar is hyper-sexuality, it seems to this write that her problems go far beyond bi-polarism.
They seem to start the day she was born---as the LAST of 5 children!
Being LAST wasn't good.
She had to be FAST---in fact, the fastest, the best!
"Fast Girl" is a fascinating book, well told by a woman who admits to being a bad student in high school and college.
As they say, you can't stop reading until the final page!
Suzy Favor Hamilton is a historic figure in American track and field.
(Her 800 time of 1:59.11 remains the Collegiate Record to this day, 25 years later! Her 3:57.40 for 1500 meters is 4th best by an American!)
Whether she is truly strong and happy, as she professes to be now, remains to be seen.
As a big fan of Suzy, I wish her the best.
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Reviews with images
Empty pages...
Thank goodness the empty pages didn't impact the story, which is excellent, but this was a first for me...a book with a couple of blank pages that should have had writing!!
