Swimming Lessons
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4.0 • 5 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
FROM THE COSTA AWARD-WINNING, WOMEN’S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF UNSETTLED GROUND
Twelve years ago Flora's mother Ingrid disappeared, vanishing from a Dorset beach, presumed drowned. Everyone - especially her sister and father Gil - believes Ingrid is long dead. Everyone, except Flora. So when she hears that her father has had an accident, and is insisting that he saw his wife, Floral rushes home.
But the answers she seeks are nowhere to be found - only further questions.
Who did Flora’s father actually see that day? Why is his house filled with towering piles of books? And might the letters hidden within them hold the truth behind her parents’ extraordinary marriage?
‘Thrilling and transporting’ Sunday Times
‘An eloquent tale of squandered love and seething secrets’ Sunday Express
‘A compelling portrait of a complicated, unconventional marriage, and of flawed humanity, with all its secrets, silences and deceits. Excellent’ Mail on Sunday
‘A beautifully told story of motherhood, marriage, and infidelity’ Good Housekeeping
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"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 Fuller's (Our Endless Numbered Days) second novel, and an intriguing epilogue ends it; in between is the story of a woman's failed marriage. When Ingrid Coleman disappeared from a Dorset beach, her years of swimming alone in the sea are presumed to have caught up with her, but her body is never found. Neither are her letters to Gil recounting their years together, tucked within the pages of books in his library, until that fateful day in the bookstore when he spies one while searching for the notes and marginalia that so fascinated him as an author. The novel unfolds in dual timelines. Ingrid's one-way correspondence effectively and uncomfortably reveals her unraveling within an unhappy marriage to a selfish man unsuited for fidelity and fatherhood. A present-day story line provides younger daughter Flora's sometimes less-well-delineated point of view; she returns home to join her sister, Nan, in caring for Gil after he injures himself chasing after Ingrid. Fuller successfully creates two discomfiting narratives, a strong backdrop for the story's essential mystery.
