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The Swimmers (Hardback)
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The Swimmers (Hardback)

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£12.99
Hardback 192 Pages
Published: 24/02/2022

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Waterstones Says

The relationship between a mother and daughter begins to fragment when the older woman's memory begins to fracture in this endlessly compassionate and wise novel from the acclaimed author of The Buddha in the Attic.

Up above there are wildfires, smog alerts, epic droughts, paper jams, teachers' strikes, insurrections, revolutions, record-breaking summers of unendurable heat, but down below, at the pool, it is always a comfortable eighty-one degrees...

Alice is one of a group of obsessed recreational swimmers for whom their local swimming pool has become the centre of their lives - a place of unexpected kinship, freedom, and ritual. Until one day a crack appears beneath its surface...

As cracks also begin to appear in Alice's memory, her husband and daughter are faced with the dilemma of how best to care for her. As Alice clings to the tethers of her past in a Home she feels certain is not her home, her daughter must navigate the newly fractured landscape of their relationship.

A novel about mothers and daughters, grief and memory, love and implacable loss, The Swimmers is spellbinding, incantatory and unforgettable. The finest work yet from a true modern master.

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780241543887
Number of pages: 192
Weight: 277 g
Dimensions: 204 x 138 x 22 mm


MEDIA REVIEWS

Her wisdom is staggeringly beautiful, implicating each of us - The Irish Times

Here comes the new Julie Otsuka novel, so we can begin to live again - Colson Whitehead, author of Harlem Shuffle

Heartbreaking and astoundingly good - Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers

I'm in awe of how this beautiful, graceful novel can hold so much grief and loss and love in its pages: a literary gem. - Nicci Gerard, author of Soham: A Story Of Our Times

'If it wasn't tragedy it would be comedy, and it nimbly treads the very narrow line between' - The Tablet

'One of the marvels of The Swimmers is its unshowy portrayal of the immense drama inherent in losing the mind before the body has expired. But perhaps even more impressive is its respect for the general confusion of living' - Financial Times

Poignant and funny, I've never read such a brilliant account of this devastating illness, nor for that matter of the compulsive nature of swimming lengths in a pool. - Collagerie

"The Swimmers" is an exquisite companion. Though it doesn't answer the unanswerable, the novel's quiet insistence resonates: that it is our perfectly ordinary proclivities that make us who we are. - New York Times

An unforgettable novel about mothers and daughters by a spellbinding talent - Daily Mail

Stylistically ambitious and deeply moving - Kirkus Reviews

A goddamn heartbreaker - Emma Straub, author of The Vacationers

A story of memory loss and its fallout for family, and of the power of pool friendship. Glittering and tender. - Sainsbury's Magazine

As a regular and sedate swimmer, I loved this novel...A quiet and thoughtful story about the small, steady joys of life and how quickly and irrevocably they can become disrupted. - Red Magazine

A story about mothers and daughters, love and loss, it will make you reconsider what's truly important in life - Kintsugi Magazine

Haunting, ironic and poetic in its resonance, this slender volume is a must-read...Don't miss this beautifully written, heartfelt, wry and wistful exploration of loss. - Woman & Home

With shrewd characterisation and original observations, Otsuka tells a tale of grief and memory that's quietly observed yet awash with dark humour and wit. - Spectator

Amid an incantatory litany of totalising losses, there are snapshots of a unique life with all its complications. Superbly realised and incredibly moving - Daily Mail

Haunting, ironic and poetic in its resonance, this slender volume is a must-read - Woman's Weekly

What makes a good life? What is a good death? The answers to these questions shimmer elusively just below the surface of The Swimmers - Stylist

Otsuka's slender, stylistically ambitious third novel is a marvel, capturing the hypnotic rhythm of lane-swimming and the devastating decline of memory and connection as dementia takes hold...Heartbreakingly powerful - Mail on Sunday, Best New Fiction

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“A mesmerising and unique tale that blew me away. It’s about so much more than swimming…”

This book was an unexpected powerhouse. The Swimmers starts with an underground pool and those that use it. There’s an array of personalities and body types and ages but all are joined together when a crack appears in... More

Hardback edition
Helpful? Upvote 7
TripFiction

“Poignant novel set in West Coast USA”

An easy to read and short novel that packs a punch. The first section is devoted to an amorphous group of people who swim regularly in a subterranean swimming pool. Down there, there is quite a community, perhaps not... More

Hardback edition
Helpful? Upvote 6

“An Absorbing Story.”

This was a lovely book to read. The book begins with a group of recreational swimmers who are each obsessed with their swimming routine for different reasons. We are given brief background to many of the swimmers and... More

Hardback edition
Helpful? Upvote 4

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