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The Swimmers

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About this listen

The black sheep in a family of former competitive swimmers must prepare for the end of her mother’s life in this sharp, sparkling debut from a bold New Zealand talent.

When an affair ends badly and takes her career down with it, 26-year-old Erin leaves Auckland to spend the holiday weekend with her aunt, uncle, and terminally ill mother at their suburban family home. On arrival, she learns that her mother has decided to take matters into her own hands and end her life—the following Tuesday.

Tasked with fulfilling her mother’s final wishes, Erin can only do her imperfect best to navigate difficult feelings, an eccentric neighborhood, and her complicated family of former competitive swimmers. She must summon the strength she would normally find in the water as she prepares for the loss of the fiery, independent woman who raised her alone, and one last swim together in the cold New Zealand Sea.

©2022 Gallic Books (P)2022 Gallic Books Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature Swimming

Critic reviews

Longlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2021

"Intense, moving, and darkly comic." (New Zealand Herald)
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This book was moving. Written from the daughter view of her mothers quest to control her death from MND. I was touched by the story, and how some things stick in your memory of an event no matter how bizarre and unrelated to the actual event they are.

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