Swimming
Joanna Hershon, 2002
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345442765
Summary
What happened the weekend that Aaron Wheeler brought his girlfriend Suzanne home to meet his family for the first time would change things forever.
In this remarkable, lyrically written debut novel, Joanna Hershon captures the ever-evolving aftermath of one tragic summer weekend for the Wheeler family in New Hampshire.
Swimming unfolds with uncommon power and a rich, interior narrative force. It is a gripping family story, a heartbreaking coming of age journey, and a suspenseful psychological investigation into the meanings of identity, fidelity, and intimacy. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Joanna Hershon received a Master of Fine Arts in fiction from Columbia University in 1999. She has been a Breadloaf Working Scholar, an Edward Albee Writing Fellow, and a twice produced playwright in New York City. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband. Swimming is her first novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Brother kills brother, and a younger sister makes their story her own in this lush but unsteady modern-day Cain and Abel tale by first-timer Hershon. On a beautiful summer weekend, Aaron Wheeler brings his college girlfriend, Suzanne, home to meet his family in New Hampshire. Golden boy Aaron is a few years older than his volatile, difficult brother, Jack; their little sister, Lila, is eight. The visit is pleasant if tense, as Suzanne finds herself drawn to Jack against her better judgment. Late one night after a party, Suzanne and Jack end up swimming alone together at the lake behind the house. As Jack makes it back to shore, naked, Aaron is waiting for him. Jack's death is made to look like an accident—it is said that he fell on the rocks—and Aaron disappears, dropping out of college. When Hershon picks up the narrative 10 years later, the story is resumed from Lila's point of view. Now living in New York City and teaching private English classes, she stumbles through her daily life, glimpsing Aaron or Jack in all the men she sees. A chance encounter with Suzanne focuses her determination to discover what really happened that night in New Hampshire and to find Aaron again. Hershon's carefully worked prose aspires to hothouse perfection, but overworked metaphors and forced turns of phrase undermine its effectiveness. At moments, the narrative invites readers to sink beneath its surface, but Hershon fails to sustain the dark, atmospheric morass she cultivates.
Publishers Weekly
Memory and desire—these two words sum up this immersive novel. Memory of a summer night, a lake, an accident. Desire of Aaron for Suzanne, of Suzanne for Jack. Lila's memories of her brothers and her desire to make sense of the past. Hershon wraps you in her spell, intimately creating fine details—the prickliness of wet skin drying in the dark, the sound of a pale green porcelain teacup breaking, the smell of a dingy hotel room. Like Jane Hamilton or Sue Miller, she has an eye for place, an ear for dialog, and true feeling for character. While the details serve to propel the plot forward, the dialog brings to life characters so real that they breathe behind you. Marred only by two coincidences used to advance the story, this is a work of real feeling, talent, and great beauty. Buy a copy and dive in. —Yvette Olson, City Univ. Lib., Renton, WA
Library Journal
Hershon's first novel is an engrossing tale of love, redemption, and second chances. —Kristine Huntley
Booklist
Unrealized or discarded possibility are both the subject and nature of this earnest debut, a story reminiscent of the family-centered fiction of Sue Miller and Jane Hamilton. It begins in 1966, when Jeb Wheeler meets Vivian Silver and impulsively brings her to his house in the New Hampshire woods. The action then fast-forwards to 1987: the Wheelers' eldest son Aaron, 21 years later, has brought his gorgeous girlfriend Suzanne Wolfe for a visit. His parents are barely glimpsed presences (as they remain in fact), but Hershon focuses close attention on Aaron's mercurial eight-year-old sister Lila and especially his brother Jack, a vaguely sinister, sardonic misfit to whom Suzanne finds herself helplessly attracted. A midnight swim following a chaotic party at a friend's house shatters the Wheelers' already precarious solidarity, ends Aaron's relationship with Lila, sends him into self-imposed exile—and leads to a long final sequence dominated by the heretofore peripheral figure of Lila. Another decade has passed: she's now a student and part-time tutor in New York City, and she directly engages the ghosts of the Wheelers' past upon reencountering (now married) Suzanne and laboriously extracting the truth about her family's losses and Aaron's whereabouts. In a scarcely credible series of scenes, Lila finds Aaron (who doesn't recognize her), acknowledges in herself the tortuous complex of motives and emotions experienced by the people whom she's been quick to blame, and achieves a muted reconciliation. Much of Swimming absorbs and satisfies, because Hershon writes lucid, stinging dialogue and movingly conveys the sense of hollowness and waste that overpowers the lives of the people. The characterizations are sketchy, however, making for both an intermittently static and overlong read. A flawed if interesting debut by a more than capable writer who'll surely give us better.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What does the title suggest, and what varieties of "swimming" are involved in the action? How does the swim at the story's start contrast with the plunge at the end?
2. Do the three epigraphs (from Marilynne Robinson, Emily Dickinson, and Martin Buber) constitute a kind of progression for the three parts? How does Dickinson's phrase—"The truth must dazzle gradually"—describe the story line?
3. Twenty-one years elapse between the action of the Prologue and Part One, and ten years elapse between Part One and Two. Parts Two and Three, however, are directly sequential. What is the author telling us about the presence of the past and the healing passage of time?
4. Can you come up with reasons for the brothers' sibling rivalry? Why are they so angry with each other, and is Suzanne a kind of lightning rod for the trouble that erupts between them, or is she the trouble itself?
5. What motivates Pria's behavior? In what ways does she change between the first and second time we meet her, and do you feel she's trying to atone for her actions at the party and on the night of Jack's death?
6. The same question could well be asked of Suzanne. How sympathetic is the author to this character/seductress? Why is it, do you think, that she's willing to acknowledge Lila during that first meeting in New York?
7. Both Lila and Aaron have the habit of calling their parents and then hanging up. What does this tell us about the nature of communication in the Wheeler clan?
8. We know what's under Sylvie's bed and what the red box contains. What would Aaron (as David Silver) have of hers under his own bed?
9. In what ways is this a time-bound piece (describing the nature of the counter-culture in the 1980s, the drug culture in the 1990s, etc.), and in what ways does the family dynamic exist outside of a specific time and place?
10. Imagine Swimming as a set of linked short stories or as a movie or play. What would be gained and what lost?
11. Why does Lila disguise herself as Abby in her brother's house? What causes her to come out of hiding and reveal herself at last?
12. Is it realistic that a brother would not know his sister after a decade of growth? And why should Lila recognize a woman she's seen only once, when she herself was eight years old at the time, and who now has spent ten years thereafter in New York City?
13. Describe a day in 1967 in which Jeb and Vivian Wheeler are alone in the house he has built and to which she moves when they're first married. Describe the same day in 1997 when they are alone in the house once more—with one of their three children dead and the other two away.
14. Imagine the visit to Portsmouth from Ben's point of view. Why does he get so angry at Lila when she says she needs to run an errand by herself?
15. Imagine the scene when Suzanne returns to her husband after she tells Lila what happened on the fateful night in 1987. What does she tell Richard and how does he respond?
16. If this novel had been told in the first person, who would be its likely narrator and why?
17. In what ways does the scene of the party at the lake outside Ann Arbor (Part Three) repeat what happened at the party in the Wheelers' pond (Part One)? Look for variations on the theme and what those changes might mean.
18. "The water was blue and the sky was pink and the trees flourishing green. 'Are you okay?' she said. He said he was full of awe." This climactic moment at the end of Chapter Twenty-five is a scene of rebirth and redemption, clearly. To what extent is it also, in the formal sense, religious? Is Aaron's time in Israel and his shelf of Biblical texts directly relevant here?
19. What will happen when Aaron goes home and arrives at the house once again?
20. These were nineteen questions. Formulate twenty more.
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Some readers find the publisher's questions (above) too difficult. You might find these LitLovers "talking points" more helpful—at least to get a discussion off the ground:
1. Talk about the two brothers, Aaron and Jack. How would you describe their relationship? In what ways are they different from one another?
2. What draws Suzanne to Jack? What is her role in (or her responsibility for) what follows? What do you think of Suzanne —at the time we first meet her and, again, 10 years later?
3. What does Lila know—or believe she knows—about the tragedy at the pond? In what way does it affect her, both in the immediate aftermath and when we meet her 10 years later? How would you describe her state of mental health in the second half of the novel?
4. What do you think about the two coincidences in the book? Are they credible? Do they ruin the book for you, or do you accept them as necessary to further the plot?
5. Talk about what happens when Lila finds Aaron? Is he different from his younger self (in the first half of the book)? Do you find it believable that Aaron doesn't recognize his sister? Why does Lila play along, choosing not to reveal her identify until later?
6. Ultimately, what does Lila come to understand by the end of the novel? How is she changed by what she learns? (Keep in mind, here, that what a character learns by the end of a book is usually one of the central themes an author has been exploring throughtout the course of the novel.)
7. Are you pleased with how the book ends?
8. Overall, do you find Swimming a satisfying read? Why or Why not? Do you feel Hershon gives too much detailed description...or is it her attention to detail appropriate and well-rendered? What about Hershon's characters: are they fully-developed as complex human beings...or rather flat and under developed?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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