The Night Swimmer: A Novel [Hardcover]

Matt Bondurant (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 2012

The Night Swimmer, Matt Bondurant’s utterly riveting modern gothic novel of marriage and belonging, confirms his gift for storytelling that transports and enthralls.

In a small town on the southern coast of Ireland, an isolated place only frequented by fishermen and the occasional group of bird-watchers, Fred and Elly Bulkington, newly arrived from Vermont having won a pub in a contest, encounter a wild, strange land shaped by the pounding storms of the North Atlantic, as well as the native resistance to strangers. As Fred revels in the life of a new pubowner, Elly takes the ferry out to a nearby island where anyone not born there is called a “blow-in.” To the disbelief of the locals, Elly devotes herself to open-water swimming, pushing herself to the limit and crossing unseen boundaries that drive her into the heart of the island’s troubles—the mysterious tragedy that shrouds its inhabitants and the dangerous feud between an enigmatic farmer and a powerful clan that has no use for outsiders.

The poignant unraveling of a marriage, the fierce beauty of the natural world, the mysterious power of Irish lore, and the gripping story of strangers in a strange land rife with intrigue and violence—The Night Swimmer is a novel of myriad enchantments by a writer of extraordinary talent.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The poignant unraveling of a marriage, the fierce beauty of the natural world, the mysterious power of Irish lore, and the gripping story of strangers in a strange land rife with intrigue and violence--The Night Swimmer is a novel of myriad enchantments by a writer of extraordinary talent."

- IndieBound

"Bondurant's equally strong at constructing an emotional landscape: the fraught, error-prone conversations between spouses afraid of losing their marriage, Elly's clear-eyed descriptions of their shared interest in both the writers and the cocktails of the American midcentury."

- Boston Globe

"Bondurant's mesmerizing third novel, set on the isolated coast of southern Ireland, uses a distinctive narrator, Elly Bulkington, to explore Cheever's fatalistic notion, and in doing so Bondurant has constructed a melancholy ode to Ireland itself." 

- Star Tribune

"The Night Swimmer," it seems to me, is best approached - and appreciated - as a tone poem, evocative and often lyrical in its descriptions of Ireland's landscape, lore, cadences and character."

-San Francisco Chronicle

"Matt Bondurant does not lay out or wrap up his mysteries neatly, but that doesn't entirely matter: what stands out in The Night Swimmer is its atmosphere and its narrating voice....Bondurant infuses his third novel with a pervasive sense of foreboding and a final act that hits with the impact of an Irish gale."

-Shelf Awareness

“The Night Swimmer,” it seems to me, is best approached — andappreciated — as a tone poem, evocative and often lyrical in its descriptionsof Ireland’s landscape, lore, cadences and character.” —San Francisco Chronicle

"Mr.Bondurant skillfully conjuresthe elemental world his characters inhabit." -New York Times

“Bondurant has written another nervy, robust and suspenseful novel.” --Kirkus

“The Night Swimmer is intriguing, seductive, treacherous, and frightening. His writing is so beautiful, poignant, and poetic, that the book is worth a second read.” —Lynne Cox, author of Swimming to Antarctica and Grayson

“Before you plunge into The Night Swimmer, be forewarned: there will be ghosts (and goats), and Gaelic spells cast by black waves of invisible power. But mostly you will be dazzled by the sheer force of Matt Bondurant’s storytelling. In prose as rugged as Ireland’s coastline and just as enchanting, Bondurant has offered up a breathtaking story of what happens when dreams come true and hearts are unbridled.” —Betsy Carter, author of Swim to Me and The Puzzle King

"Bondurant uses the forbidding landscape of thesouthern Irish coast, blasted by wind and rain and always in the grip ofthe ocean, 'a kingdom of darkness and cold,' to generate remarkable tension,both psychological and somehow atmospheric..." -Booklist

“Lush, brutal, and otherworldly, The Night Swimmer is completely transporting. This darkly beautiful love story

—set in Bondurant's distinctively captivating and merciless coastal Ireland—will pull you under.” —Julianna Baggott, author of Girl Talk

"But when Bondurant explores what it is like to push yourself to the brink, whether with physical activity, drugs and alcohol, or lust, he captures an intensity of experience the reader won’t soon forget."

-BookPage

About the Author

Matt Bondurant is the author of three novels. The first, entitled The Third Translation (Hyperion 2005), was an international bestseller that was translated into 14 languages worldwide. The Wettest County in the World was a New York Times Editor’s Pick, and one of the San Francisco Chronicle's Best 50 Books of the Year.  His most recent novel is The Night Swimmer. He currently teaches literature and writing in the Arts & Humanities graduate program at the University of Texas at Dallas. 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (January 10, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451625294
• ISBN-13: 978-1451625295
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Matt Bondurant's new novel The Night Swimmer (Scribner) will be published in January, 2012. His second novel The Wettest County in the World (Scribner 2008) was a New York Times Editor's Pick, and San Francisco Chronicle Best 50 Books of the Year. His first novel The Third Translation (Hyperion 2005) was an international bestseller, translated into 14 languages worldwide. A former John Gardner Fellow in Fiction at Bread Loaf, Kingsbury Fellow at Florida State, and Walter E. Dakin Fellow at Sewanee, Matt's short fiction has been published in journals such as Prairie Schooner, The New England Review, and Glimmer Train, and he has recently held residencies at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. He currently lives in Texas. (mattbondurant.com)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars You go your way, Matt, and I'll go mine, January 15, 2012

By 

Susan Tunis (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Night Swimmer: A Novel (Hardcover)

I have now read two of Matt Bondurant's three novels. I hate coming to this conclusion, but I think they're just not for me. We're simply not on the same wavelength somehow. The descriptions always sound interesting and intriguing, but then the book winds up a disappointment for me.

The Night Swimmer is the story of Americans Fred and Elly, but it Elly who is the first-person narrator. The novel's lengthy prologue ends on this ominous note:

"This is hard to describe now. I will have to carefully measure the tone. In my mind, it is a story without words, only the shrill cry of heartbreak. I think of how much time I spent with my head in the water, swimming long stretches of the lake or the churning green sea. I think of what happened on that windy shore, the broken harbor, a small pub on the edge of the world, and I am ashamed."

The catalyst for the tale is a contest held by a beer company. Fred bests all competition to win ownership of a pub on the Irish coast. The couple believes it to be a dream come true, and chance to make a fresh start at simpler lives. And at first they're happy, Fred spending his time in the pub, and Elly pursuing her passion for open-ocean long-distance swimming:

"As I read these horrid accounts, I strangely felt all the more confident of my ability to make the swim to Fastnet. I just knew it wouldn't happen to me. It couldn't. It was as if these other people had engaged in some kind of tragic wager with the sea, putting up their lives on a foolish bet, and lost. But for me it wasn't like that. It wasn't about odds, or my natural ability. The ocean was not my adversary. The sea would never destroy me."

It's hard to say when things got ominous, but that they did. I'm not going to spoil what happens, because frankly, I'm still not sure I know. There were hostile natives, strange events, a downward spiral. Perhaps someone a little more in tune with all things Irish can explain it to me. But it wasn't merely the overly onerous story-telling that I had a problem with. The characters in this tale were difficult to get a handle on. They were opaque. This likely was intentional, as it reinforced the Americans' status as outsiders, but it was difficult to care much about anyone or feel invested in their fates.

Bondurant's prose is okay, though probably not as poetic as it's meant to be. I'm not entirely certain what my problem with Matt Bondurant is. I have trouble understanding what this author is trying to say, but the even bigger problem is that I really don't care. It's time for me to cut my losses.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An interesting story, but..., January 10, 2012

By 

Debra L. Martin (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Night Swimmer: A Novel (Hardcover)

"The Night Swimmer" is a beautifully written novel that tells the story of Fred and Elly and their undertaking in moving to Ireland when they win a pub. It's a new adventure for them and they dive into it head-long without much thought. Fred is thrilled with the pub and Elly is free to indulge her own passion--swimming in the ocean. Through a genetic defect, Elly is able to swim in cold water without any adverse affects for quite a long time.

While Fred submerges himself in learning how to run a pub in Baltimore and writing his ever-elusive novel, Elly finds herself taking the ferry to Clear Island on a regular basis to swim. She befriends only a few. Most of the locals do not like strangers, and they ignore her, but some seem to keep track of her swimming in their waters. There are a number of interesting characters on Clear Island, a decades old tragedy that no one will speak of, and an enigmatic goat farmer who seems to have a running feud with the Corrigans, a powerful family who runs most of the island commerce and the ferry service to and from the mainland.

The author does an excellent job of keeping to Elly's viewpoint. I could feel her anguish when her marriage begins to unravel and her hurt feelings when the locals shun her. I enjoyed reading most of the story. However, I did find some things either not explained at all or that they were so subtle that I found myself wondering what just happened especially surrounding climatic events on Clear Island. I feel like I missed something important, but just couldn't put my finger on it. I found this frustrating, and for that reason, I've not rated this novel as high as I would have liked.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, February 1, 2012

By 

Maria teresa Gil Real (Madrid, Spain) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Night Swimmer: A Novel (Hardcover)

This novel disappointed me. Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed Bondurant's descriptions of the wild beauty of the coast of southern Ireland, but that's all the praise I can give this book. The professionals' glowing reviews are overdone, and some customers' reviews are more to the point. While Fred and Elly, the novel's main characters, are well described, the other characters in the book are vague, half described, and their actions are left hanging. Yes, this story has many hanging shreds, and in the end one is left with a big question mark. And not because of the ghosts that are presumed to be all around.

One more thing: Bondurant occasionally lapses into a corny phrase that is acceptable for beginners, but not for an author of several previous books.