Chasing Water: Elegy of an Olympian

by Anthony Ervin, Constantine Markides

Overview

The Olympic swimmer reveals the wild and challenging journey that took place between two gold medals: "Inspiring, humorous, and often profound."—People Magazine
Anthony Ervin is an Olympic swimmer who won the gold at nineteen—and that may be one of the least interesting things about him. An athlete of Jewish and African-American descent who is also a practicing Buddhist, he auctioned off the medal he won in Sydney to help raise funds for victims of the 2004 tsunami. He had grown up battling Tourette's syndrome, and later struggled with suicidal depression, drinking and drugs, and a period of homelessness.
 
This blend of memoir and biography, written by Ervin in collaboration with trainer Constantine Markides, is part spiritual quest, part self-destructive bender involving Zen temples, fast motorcycles, tattoo parlors, and rock 'n' roll bands—revealing the journey that preceded his remarkable 2016 Olympic comeback as the oldest individual gold medal winner in swimming.
 
Winner of the 2018 Buck Dawson Author Award presented by the International Swimming Hall of Fame
"Gripping…Readers will understand the psyche and life of elite athletes as never before."—Library Journal
"A celebrated Olympian recounts how he rose to the top of his sport, crashed, and found redemption…The author never flinches at revealing his less-than-perfect past, and the humility he demonstrates at coming to terms with his own egotism and personal shortcomings makes the book frequently compelling. A provocative and refreshingly honest redemption memoir."—Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617754647
Publisher:	Edge of Sports
Publication date:	03/14/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	322
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Anthony Ervin is an American Olympian who resides in Los Angeles, where he continues to pursue his career as a professional swimmer, speaker, and coach. In the 2016 Rio Olympics he won two gold medals, including one in the 50-meter free, making history as the oldest individual swimmer to win an Olympic gold medal.Constantine Markides is a New York–based swim trainer and former correspondent for the international daily newspaper Cyprus Mail. He has worked with CNN's Anderson Cooper and was featured on CBC and NPR's Marketplace. His essays and fiction have been published in various magazines and journals, including Rolling Stone. A high school state champion swimmer, Markides also swam for Columbia University.

Table of Contents

Preface 13

Part I The Dive

1 The Ready Room 17

2 All in the Game 27

Part II Gold

3 The Iron Fence 37

4 A Nervous Condition 58

5 Experiments 76

6 Over the Water 92

7 The Heat 109

8 Wet, Black Bough 129

Part III Turbulence

9 In a Dark Pool 143

10 Brother Saint 163

11 Lethe's Edge 178

12 Serpent Skin 195

13 Into the Flood 211

14 The Chrysalis 228

Part IV The Resurfacinig

15 Meditations 251

16 The Year of the Water Dragon 266

17 Still Water 283

Epilogue 287

Appendixes

A Therapy, a graphic story 299

B Shadrach Battles 312

C William Slaughtet 315

Editorial Reviews

"Markides smartly combines his own journalistic account with a parallel narrative in which Ervin . . . explains his life and style. Some talents simply defy explanation, however, and Ervin may be in that category. . . . The story of his comeback at 31 (ancient for a swimmer) is rendered more amazing by the contrast with what went before."

Booklist

"Anthony Ervin is a lot of things. He is an open book and a closed circuit, a body fueled by a brain, an old man with a young soul. He is the American Dream. He is, once again, improbably, an Olympic champion."

Yahoo

"[Ervin’s] story is an amazing comeback tale."

Huffington Post

"Anthony Ervin's path was anything but typical, going from winning a gold medal in swimming in 2000 at the age of 19 to retiring, auctioning off his medal for charity and embarking on a life that included joining a rock band, drugs and alcohol before coming back to swimming. Chasing Water: Elegy of an Olympian is an honest look at his life and his return to the pool and to the Olympic Games in 2012. He went on to win gold once more in 2016."
—TeamUSA.org

"Ervin is easily identifiable in the splash-and-dash race by his sleeve of tattoos on each churning arm. He turns interviews into a discussion on everything from philosophy to Biblical parables. Earlier this year, he detailed his life's adventures, including drugs and sex, in a book called Chasing Water: Elegy of an Olympian."
—AP/The Big Story

"You won't find many athletes like Ervin, nor will you find many sports autobiographies like his recently published Chasing Water: Elegy of an Olympian...It's fascinating."
—Charlotte Observer

"[Chasing Water] is one of the most honest athlete biographies you'll ever read. It is Ervin's story, unvarnished."
—The Red Bulletin Magazine

"Ervin, a former world record-holder, won gold in Rio in the 4x100m free and 50m free races. He's also overcome incredible odds, surviving depression, homelessness, and addiction in the years between his record-breaking 2000 Olympic performance and his comeback in 2012. His book, Chasing Water, tells the story of those times."
—Miami New Times

"A compelling...view of an amazing person and successful swimmer named Anthony Ervin...Definitely a recommended read."
—BlogCritics

"This is the story of how Anthony Ervin, a former world record holder, won gold in Rio in the 4 x 100m free and 50m free races. He's also overcome incredible odds, surviving depression, homelessness, and addiction in the years between his record-breaking 2000 Olympic performance and his comeback in 2012."
—VOYA Magazine

"Just a glance at the cover of the swimmer's recently published memoir Chasing Water: Elegy of an Olympian, reveals the intensity of Ervin's career to date. He's seen looking straight at the reader while in the full lotus pose underwater in a pool. Other swimmers are racing behind him, but Ervin doesn't see them. The message the reader receives is clear: Anthony Ervin is focused on more than the competition."
—Tricycle Magazine

"Anthony Ervin won gold at the 2000 Olympic Games, then auctioned off his medal for charity and retired from swimming in his early 20s. He set off on what's been described as 'part spiritual quest, part self-destructive bender,' then returned to compete in the 2012 Olympics. Now 35, Ervin will swim the 50-meter freestyle in Rio. Here, he tells his story in alternating chapters with journalist and swim trainer Constantine Markides."
—Houston Chronicle

"Most memoirs from Olympians are puff pieces, ghost-written so blandly you fall asleep trying to make it to the end of the first chapter. Chasing Water is the opposite of that, an intimate, visceral experience you will appreciate."
—SwimSwam

"On the surface, a biography about a swimmer with just one individual Olympic gold medal might seem a stretch. Anthony Ervin's story, however, transcends that shining moment in the 50-meter freestyle sprint at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, when he won a relay gold. After becoming the first swimmer of African American descent to medal in Olympic swimming, Ervin auctioned off his most prized medal in order to donate to tsunami relief. He retired from competitive swimming and entered a period of self-discovery that led to some questionable decisions and lessons learned the hard way. He resurfaced in 2012 to make the US Olympic team with a personal-best time, yet finished fifth at the Games in London. Now he's training for a shot at swimming in a third Olympics this summer in Rio de Janeiro. His roller coaster ride to this point is told alternately by journalist and swim trainer Constantine Markides and by Ervin in his own revealing words."
—Christian Science Monitor, 6 Eclectic Sports Books

"However one may be compelled to slap a bar code on Ervin—the Charlie Sheen of the U.S. Swim Team may even be in consideration—part of the complex context of his odyssey toward making the 2016 roster this summer comes in owning up to a new book, Chasing Water: Elegy of an Olympian, which Ervin co-writes in an interesting authorship divide with [Constantine Markides], a competitive swimmer himself."
—Los Angeles Daily News

"[Chasing Water] intentionally shucks athlete biography conventions in exchange for a seesaw of first-person memories written like diary entries (plus some of Ervin's actual dairy entries) and third-person exposition interspersed with quotes from key characters."
—San Diego Jewish Journal

"The story of Anthony Ervin is awe-inspiring...[and] beautifully chronicled in Anthony's recently released memoir, Chasing Water: Elegy of an Olympian. Wholly original, it's completely unlike any sports memoir you have previously read. Featuring arresting black-and-white drawings and a graphic story extra as well as an inventive and mercurial narrative style that morphs chapter by chapter to reflect Ervin's restless, multifaceted life, it's an uncommon, must read sui generis sports autobiography."
—Rich Roll

"Touching and heartfelt."
—Books & Life

"A refreshingly unexpected athlete biography void of eye-rolling, clichéd, self help propaganda bullshit."
—Gary Hall, Jr., swimmer, ten-time Olympic medalist

"[Ervin] is the most talented swimmer I've ever seen...He just has amazing feel for the water. He doesn't power through; he has finesse."
—Natalie Coughlin, swimmer, twelve-time Olympic medalist

"The most original character in the world of swimming...Ervin's story will inspire, astonish, and challenge your notions of what it means to be an Olympic athlete. Forget the surface-deep stories you see every four years on television, this is the raw wet truth of a monstrous talent with the demons to match. Like Andre Agassi's Open, it's a story of mighty potential both realized and abandoned, and found again. Olympic champion, rock 'n' roll wastrel, cerebral mind, and physical freak, Ervin defies categorization and cuts his own path through a high wire life."
—Casey Barrett, Olympic swimmer

"Anthony Ervin is not only the most beautiful swimmer in the water I have ever seen, he is also one of the great stories of triumph and perseverance in the midst of tremendous adversity. I am so proud to call him my friend and I know his life's challenges will inspire generations to come."
—Rowdy Gaines, swimmer, three-time Olympic gold medalist

From the Publisher

2016-01-26
A celebrated Olympian recounts how he rose to the top of his sport, crashed, and found redemption. Swimming became Ervin's favorite childhood recreational outlet by accident. Later, it became a sport that transformed him into a prisoner of his own athletic gifts. This book, which tells his story through a narrative that interweaves the former gold medalist's memories with commentary by his friend and colleague Markides, reveals the extreme highs and lows that characterized Ervin's remarkable life and career. The "wildfire" son of a half-Jewish mother and African-American father, Ervin's swimming talent, and personal rebelliousness, manifested early on. Frequently disobedient in school, he set his first swim record at age 10. A diagnosis of Tourette's syndrome in junior high school made the already wayward Ervin even more difficult to handle. However, it also seemed to offer "cognitive advantage[s] and nervy sensitivity" that made his swimming even more brilliant. His athletic prowess garnered him a place on the University of California's swim team in the late 1990s and a gold medal in the 50-meter freestyle at the 2000 Olympics. Yet "failure after failure" in everything from personal relationships to school dogged him in the aftermath of his success. Beset by depression and lost to drinking, drug-taking, and other risky behaviors, Ervin auctioned off his gold medal, found temporary respite in Zen and Sufi mysticism, moved to New York, and learned how to play guitar. A job as a swim coach brought him back to the sport. Gradually, Ervin put the pieces of his life back together. He graduated from Berkeley a decade after he started and trained for a berth—which he won—on the 2012 U.S. swim team. The author never flinches at revealing his less-than-perfect past, and the humility he demonstrates at coming to terms with his own egotism and personal shortcomings makes the book frequently compelling. A provocative and refreshingly honest redemption memoir.

Kirkus Reviews