The Swimmers

A Vogue Best Book of 2022
A Bookseller Editor's Choice
Red Magazine's '10 Best New Books Out This Month'
'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
'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
'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

From the internationally bestselling 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.

'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