“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.”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
Just finished The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka.
The long awaited novel by the author of Buddah In the Attic is another short, minimalist style story about a group of swimmers whose lives seem to rotate around this pool where all seems to go well until a crack appears at the bottom of the pool.
This crack will bring a lot of concern to this group of swimmers until finally their lives will be disrupted by this crack in ways many could never foresee.
The pool takes up the first half of the book, then the story concentrates on a former pool swimmer named Alice and her daughter. As Alice grows older she now must deal with certain health issues that will affect her and her family in ways that many of us have had to deal ourselves with family members who become incapacitated later in life.
The story seems autobiographical in some ways as the author has the knack of bringing to her stories an intimacy that brings the reader to a level of comfort and concern with her characters, as if we know these people and we can totally sympathize with what is happening in their lives.
At 132 pages it is very short, but feels so complete because of the authors amazing ability to get it all done in a quick but thorough way.
Recommended.
Reviewed by:
Richard Franco
Added 5th December 2022
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