The Swimmers, published to critical acclaim in early 2022, is Julie Otsuka’s newest novel. Brilliant, innovative, and slim (just under 200 pages), the novel follows a devoted group of swimmers who attend the community pool. For anyone who has been a part of a hobbyist community — at a gym, a writing group, a recreational dance class, or possibly a dog park — Otsuka’s representation of the pool will feel uncanny in its accuracy. She depicts the personalities of the regulars and their rhythms, the unspoken rules and loudly enforced ones, the way you can know fellow members so intimately within the context of the community, but know nothing of their lives outside. One day, a crack appears at the bottom of the pool, and the members grapple with uncertainty as the fate of their meeting place comes into question. Changes at the pool are worrisome for everyone, but especially for Alice, one of the oldest members who is gradually losing her memory. As the novel progresses, Alice becomes the focal point; through the heartbreaking lens of what she remembers and what she has forgotten, and told from the perspective of her estranged daughter, Alice’s story slowly unfolds. There are memories of living in the Japanese American internment camps as a young girl, of meeting her first love, of giving birth to her children and creating a life with her husband, and of course swimming in her beloved pool. As the daughter watches her mother’s dementia worsen, she grieves for time lost, recalling memories of her parents and retroactively appreciating the family they built for her and her brothers.

Devastating and infused with tenderness, but also wryly satirical at times, The Swimmers reads like an unassuming masterpiece. Otsuka takes a deep look at the concept of time — how we spend it, how we perceive it, why it seems endless until it suddenly runs out — and from that, spins a poignant narrative about community and family. More character-driven than plot-driven, and with lots of play on style, this novel lives on the more artistic side of the literary fiction spectrum. I personally find that a heavy focus on style can sometimes take me out of the reading experience (looking at you, Ulysses), but I did not find that to be the case here. While the format is endlessly creative, the writing itself is clear and accessible. Also, Otsuka’s use of the rare second-person narration (“What was it, you wonder, that first made her begin to forget?”), gave me a feeling of heightened empathy with the characters and, interestingly, a sense of responsibility for their actions. I loved the swimmers, I loved Alice, and I loved this novel… The Swimmers is an absolute gem.

I’d recommend this book to…

• Anyone who loves when an author plays with narration in interesting ways… it’s similar in style to Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
• Anyone interested in the complicated ways we support and care for one another within communities, families, and institutions… it’s similar in theme to Joan is Okay by Weike Wang
• Anyone delighted by unassuming paragraphs bursting with revelations… it’s similar in tone to The Sentence by Louise Erdrich