Swimming Lessons
Claire Fuller, 1017
Tin House Books
356 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781941040515
Summary
An exhilarating literary mystery that will keep readers guessing until the final page.
Ingrid Coleman writes letters to her husband, Gil, about the truth of their marriage, but instead of giving them to him, she hides them in the thousands of books he has collected over the years.
When Ingrid has written her final letter she disappears from a Dorset beach, leaving behind her beautiful but dilapidated house by the sea, her husband, and her two daughters, Flora and Nan.
Twelve years later, Gil thinks he sees Ingrid from a bookshop window, but he's getting older and this unlikely sighting is chalked up to senility. Flora, who has never believed her mother drowned, returns home to care for her father and to try to finally discover what happened to Ingrid.
But what Flora doesn't realize is that the answers to her questions are hidden in the books that surround her. Scandalous and whip-smart, Swimming Lessons holds the Coleman family up to the light, exposing the mysterious truths of a passionate and troubled marriage. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 9, 1967
• Where—Oxfordshire, England, UK
• Education—Winchester School of Art; M.A., University of Winchester
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Winchester, England
laire Fuller is an English writer and the author of the novels Our Endless Numbered Days (2015), Swimming Lessons (2017), and Bitter Orange (2018). She was born and raised in Oxfordshire.
In the 1980s she studied sculpture at Winchester School of Art, working mainly in wood and stone, before embarking on a marketing career. Later, she attained her Master's in creative and critical writing from the University of Winchester.
Awards
Fuller began writing fiction at the age of 40. She told a fellow writer,
Getting the words down is torture. Once they're written, I love rewriting, editing and polishing.
The polishing has paid off handsomely, winning her a number of literary prize—the Desmond Elliott Prize for her 2015 debut novel, Our Endless Numbered Days; the BBC Opening Lines Short Story Competition in 2014; and the Royal Academy Short Story Award in 2016.
Fuller and her husband live in Winchester, England. Her son and a daughter are grown. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/9/2017.)
Book Reviews
"Gil Coleman looked down from the first-floor window of the bookshop and saw his dead wife standing on the pavement below." This provocative sentence opens the story of a woman's failed marriage.… Fuller successfully creates two discomfiting narratives, a strong backdrop for the story's essential mystery.
Publishers Weekly
Did Ingrid Coleman drown or just disappear during the summer of 1992? Fuller's richly layered second novel raises these questions and more.… [W]ith revelations and surprises, Fuller's well-crafted, intricate tale captures the strengths and shortcomings of ordinary people. —Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Fuller proves to be a master of temporal space, taking readers through flashbacks and epistolary chapters at a pace timed to create wonder and suspense. It's her beautiful prose, though, that rounds this one out, as she delves deeply to examine the legacies of a flawed and passionate marriage
Booklist
Fuller's tale is eloquent, harrowing, and raw, but it's often muddled by tired, cloying dialogue. And whereas Ingrid shines as a protagonist at large, the supporting characters are lacking in depth. Simmering with tension, this tragic, albeit imperfect, mystery is sure to keep readers inching off their seats.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion of Swimming Lessons ... then take off on your own:
1. Do you think Gil ever found the letters Ingrid wrote to him? Any of them? Some of them? All of them? If so, when? (There is no agreement on this point among readers.)
2. Talk about what the letters reveal about Ingrid's marriage to Gil and the kind of man he is (or was)?
3. What about Ingrid—what do we learn about her? What were her motives for writing the letters? Are they to be believed—is she trustworthy? Why did Ingrid write the letters to Gil rather than to her daughters?
4. Consider the symbolic significance of Ingrid's placing letters in between the pages of books (stories within stories). What might that suggest about the thematic concerns of Fuller's novel…or perhaps the truthfulness of the letters themselves…or the truthfulness of any retelling of anyone's past?
5. Talk about the daughters. How are Nan and Flora alike, and how are they different from one another? Nan, for instance, can not imagine her mother alive, while Flora continues to believe, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, that Ingrid is still alive. What do those divergent beliefs say about the sisters?
6. When Ingrid finds another woman breastfeeding Nan, what does it mean that Ingrid would "eventually understand"? Who was the woman? Was she Gabriel's mother, perhaps? Or someone else? What is the significance, if any, of that scene?
7. Speaking of Gabriel's mother: what do you make of her and her decision not to marry Gil, as her son insists?
8. As you read Swimming Lessons, did you think of Where'd You Go Bernadette? If you've read Maria Semple's book, how do the two novels compare?
9. What is the significance of the book's title "Swimming Lessons"?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)