The Swimmers
This book is structured as a number of short stories about the dignities and indignities
of age and memory, all centered around a woman who finds herself in an assisted living
facility.
The writing is not, I would say, particularly good. It is New Yorker-core but overdoses
on length and pathos; it is a bit like a bad episode of This American Life. There is a listicality
to the writing that grates fairly quickly, in no small part due to how unoriginal the listicality
is (Joe Brainard's take on the transcendence of the mundane in I Remember feels like a much
purer articulation of the form.)
There is one thing that sticks with me through this book, which is the group of titular Swimmers
from which the stories move on much too quickly. The idea of this group — an identity separate from
work, from age or race or sex or wealth, held together not even by love of swimming or by aptitude
but of shared sanctity — is really quite beautiful. I think it will stick with me for a long time.