Lifeguard

An unforgettable memoir from New York City’s first female lifeguard chief, this coming-of-age story plunges into the rough-and-tumble, sun-soaked world of Rockaway Beach in the 1970s and 1980s.

The first time I ever saw a lifeguard get horned was in the summer of 1974.

So begins the singular story of Janet Fash, the first female lifeguard chief at Rockaway Beach. Janet never expected to be a lifeguard, but when she got recruited by a friend to join the New York City lifeguarding corps, she never looked back. Rockaway Beach, her first post, had it all: sun, sand, and the imperative to be the best. After all, people’s lives are on the line.

Lifeguard: A Love Story is a singular memoir about Janet’s life on the beach. Rockaway is considered the most dangerous post in the city, with unpredictable rip currents and packed beaches. But it’s also the envy of lifeguards everywhere—a beach where all the action happens, where you’re as likely to save three lives before lunch as you are to stop the hot dog vendor from getting robbed. Janet started as a lifeguard there in 1979, making it through the customary hazing and binge drinking at Connolly’s, the local watering hole. She met and made friends with the surfers, who could always be counted on to help with a rescue. She met her husband on the beach and made sure her children, once they came along, were ocean-swimmers-in-training. Her fellow lifeguards showed up to her wedding and family funerals, and became her lifelong friends. Soon, forty years had passed and she’d spent almost every summer with a whistle around her neck. Lifeguard is an evocative picture of how a place as special as Rockaway Beach has changed over four decades. Yet at its most essential, it’s a coming-of-age tale, detailing what it was like to be a woman rising through the ranks in a male-dominated field, details of the legendary “Caveman Conventions” on the beach in the 80s, an inside look at the persistent union corruption that has plagued the corps, and a poignant through-line of grief, as the stakes of the job are life and death.

Lifeguard: A Love Story is about how a job can become something like a vocation, if you love it enough.