The Swimmers

Distinguished best-selling novelist Otsuka’s (Buddha in the Attic) latest is an introspective work that examines life’s journeys from a multitude of perspectives. Using second- and third-person narrative, the novel opens with a look at the regular visitors to a local public swimming pool and their day-to-day habits and accomplishments, with brief mention of their names and occupations. The story then shifts from the swimmers to the discovery of a crack in the pool, its effects on the swimmers, and the pool’s eventual closure. The final chapters focus on Alice, a retired lab technician with dementia, briefly mentioned in the novel’s opening, whose condition has worsened to the point that she now lives in a long-term care residence. Otsuka’s spare, dreamlike writing offers readers a deeply touching exploration of the impact on Alice’s Japanese American family (particularly her daughter) of caring for a loved one with dementia.