Swimming: A Novel [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Nicola Keegan (Author), Aya Cash (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 14, 2009

“I loved Swimming. It’s the most original novel I’ve read all year. I can’t get Pip’s voice out of my mind. Give yourself a treat this summer—read this book.”
—Judy Blume

A spectacular debut about the rise of an Olympic champion—a novel about competition, obsession, the hunger for victory, and a young girl with an unsinkable spirit struggling to stay afloat in the only way she can.

When we first meet Pip, the extraordinary heroine of Nicola Keegan’s first novel, she is landlocked in a small town in the center of Kansas, literally swimming for her life. Pip is tall and flat and smart and funny and supernaturally buoyant. On land, she has her share of troubles: an agoraphobic mother, a lost father, a drug-addled sister, and a Catholic education dominated by a group of high-energy nuns. But in the water, Pip is unstoppable. In the water, her suffering and rage are transmuted into grace and speed and beauty.

Swimming is the story of Pip’s journey from a small Midwestern swim team to her first state meet, her brutal professional training, and the final, record-breaking swims that lead to her dizzying ascent to the Olympic podium in Barcelona. It’s the story of a girl who discovers, in the loneliness of adolescence, in the family tragedies that threaten to engulf her, the resilience of the human spirit and the spectacular power of her own body.

A ferociously original novel, sparkling with wit and blazing with emotion, from a gifted new novelist.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Keegan takes on death, religion, relationships and coming-of-age in her gorgeously stylized and irreverent debut about a rising Olympic swimming star. Not even a year after Philomena Pip Ash is born in 1960s Middle America, her parents put their rambunctious infant in a pool and watch the remarkable sight of a nine-month-old gliding through the water. With some help from Olympic Supercoach Ernest K. Mankovitz, Pip becomes a mercenary swimming machine who wins an unprecedented collection of gold medals in three Olympic games. Though Pip's connection with water is preternaturally intense, she can't relate to people, a dilemma heightened by early encounters with death and her innate awareness of loathsome pain and insecurities. After going through a premature career climax and the subsequent plummet, Pip is forced to deal with emotions she's spent her life ignoring; her sarcastic (and f-bomb laden) musings provide many amusing turns, while Keegan's linguistic playfulness moves the story at a fast clip, even if it sometimes muddles what's going on—particularly toward the end. This is worth reading for the prose alone. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Praise for Nicola Keegan’s Swimming

“I loved Swimming. It’s the most original novel I’ve read all year. I can’t get Pip’s voice out of my mind. Give yourself a treat this summer—read this book.”
—Judy Blume

“Deadpan hilarious . . . fun and imaginative. . . . An ambitious and exhilarating novel about a girl for whom swimming is as vital as breathing. . . . The muscular energy of Keegan’s prose . . . works in bursts—short, punchy clauses and chapters—and Pip’s voice is wryly comic, even when events turn tragic.”
—Radhika Jones, Time

“You don’t have to be a swimmer to respond to this story; you don’t even have to be into sports (heck, I spent all of high school PE hiding in the marching band and I loved this book). . . . [The] tension between exuberance and despair is what gives this novel such reckless buoyancy. . . . Completely absorbing. . . . The book delivers some knockout scenes at the Olympics, enriched by Pip’s quirky humor about her competitors and the media’s inanity.”
—Ron Charles, The Washington Post Book World

“Keegan’s energy jumps off the page. . . . Swimming is a wonderful coming-of-age story, a richly detailed account of a young woman channeling her rage, grief and insecurity into a passion to win. The voice Keegan has invented for Pip is sarcastic, thoughtful, elegant, irreverent.”
—Diane White, The Boston Globe

“If Jane Bowles and Gerard Manley Hopkins had a lovechild, she might just possibly write as gloriously as Nicola Keegan. Swimming is a novel for people who love donut holes, or the dead, or dogs, or nuns, or fat people, or world class athletes, or the English language, or pretty much anything. It should be read, re–read, dreamed about, quoted to friends, and enacted as a shimmery odd hilarious mystery play. Swimming is simply magnificent.”
—Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances

“Nicola Keegan has pulled off a coup with her first novel. Swimming is as entertaining as it is deeply moving, a story of loss that is—against all odds—also a jubilation.”
—Lauren Groff, author of The Monsters of Templeton

“Keegan takes on death, religion, relationships and coming-of-age in her gorgeously stylized and irreverent debut about a rising Olympic swimming star. . . . Keegan's linguistic playfulness moves the story at a fast clip. . . . This is worth reading for the prose alone.”
—Publishers Weekly

“A troubled child finds her natural element, swimming her way to the Olympics, in this shimmering debut. Young Pip relays her tale with such insight, you’ll feel you’re floating beside her.”
—Good Housekeeping

“A fine debut novel about the making of a Olympic champ.”
—People

“Nicola Keegan’s sleek–as–a–porpoise debut novel.”
—Cathleen Medwick, O, The Oprah Magazine

“[A] stroke of genius.”
—Daily Candy

“Well-crafted.”
—Jan Blodgett, Library Journal

“Told in her own quirky, questioning and super-critical voice, Pip’s story of finding her way back to a life on land is inspiring, a must-read for anyone who has, at one time or another, found life to be a challenge. And who hasn’t?”
—Ann La Farge, Hudson Valley News
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio; Unabridged edition (July 14, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743597575
• ISBN-13: 978-0743597579
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (79 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,635,080 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ten Stars Would Not Be Enough!, June 5, 2009

By 

Eileen Granfors (Santa Clarita, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Swimming (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Nicola Keegan's irrepressible first novel tells the story of a young girl's rise from a tall Kansas hick to world- famous Olympic swimmer.

I loved the book for its dissection of the competitive spirit, the details of training (including the motivational speeches and the required diets) and the mentality of the super athlete. The analysis of the opposition was both snarky and sympathetic.

I loved this book for its depiction of swimming as escape from the burdens that life places upon families through illness, through dysfunction, through grief and loss and difference and plain old growing up. "Swimming" also gives us the friendship of Philomena and the Cocoplat with warmth and grace as the two change, grow, grow apart, reconcile.

I loved this book for the voice of the narrator, Philomena, her honesty, exuberance, humor, "eye talk," nun-parodies, and self-doubt.

"Swimming" is a funny, heart-breaking, wild, detailed, luminous, shattering, and wonderful book. It is absolutely my favorite book in years.

Brava, brava, brava, Ms. Keegan! "Swimming" is "Ulysses" without the intellectual pretense. The esteemed Harold Bloom of Yale may not agree, but I have "nunnerisms" straight from Philomena to tell him what I think of all that literary blather. This is a book for the ages and the people, not just the ivory-tower crowd.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hurt Forges a Champion, May 28, 2009

By 

Phyllis T. Smith - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Swimming (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

This novel is about an Olympic swimming champion, but there is relatively little about the Olympics. Only one of the character's swimming races is presented in any detail at all. We see her punishing training routine. But the build-up to the specific races, the suspense about whether or not Pip, our protagonist, will break a world record or win the eight gold medals she aims at, is almost nonexistent, a sort of afterthought. This is not remotely a female, aquatic "Chariots of Fire."

What does the novel focus on? Mainly, the effects of Pip's tragic family history and, to a considerably lesser extent, her relationships with fellow swimmers. At one point, Pip says that something is wrong with every swimming champion--some grief or deficiency is driving them. Pip is driven to swim to escape unhappiness at home. To me the most involving part of the novel concerns her older sister's struggle with cancer. No one will speak honestly to this unfortunate young girl. She emerges as a vivid character about whom the reader truly cares. It's harder to care about Pip's mother, who suffers from a severe anxiety disorder which prevents her attending any of her daughter's swim meets, or Pip's two other sisters, one an almost-nun, the other struggling with drug addiction.

The writing is beautiful. This is a first person account, told in the present tense, and with italics substituting for quotation marks. Stylistically, all this works, bringing us very close to Pip. As a reader, you feel you are meeting a real human being and become truly involved with her story.

This is the kind of book in which, if the protagonist gets a dog, you assume it will meet a sad fate. Misery is piled upon misery in the early part of the novel. Happiness is rare and fleeting. No family member ever expresses pride in Pip's achievements. We get a sense of the sacrifices endured by an Olympic champion, not of the triumphs.

Pip's true struggle is less to win Olympic gold than to first evade and then finally confront grief and depression: I get this. Still, I wanted the other part of Pip's story--the thrill of competition, and ultimately of victory. This aspect is stinted. I found the novel absorbing--I admire the writing enough to give it four stars--but I felt a piece was missing.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant writing, elusive subject, May 30, 2009

By 

Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Swimming (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Swimming tells the story of Philomena, a tall sturdy midwesterner who transcends a dysfunctional family to become an Olympian gold medal swimming champion. I have no idea if the premise is plausible, but author Nicola Keegan writes so powerfully that I didn't care.

Reading Swimming is like seeing a car wreck. It's brutal but often hard to look away. I found myself wanting to read more and more. The pages kept turning. But as other reviewers have noted, Philomena rarely gets to enjoy a positive experience. Good things get taken away or overshadowed by the aftermath.

Perhaps there's just so much going on it's hard to keep track, whether you're living the life or just reading about it. Philomena's father chose an eccentric career path, yet the family seems to have unlimited money. Each of Philomena's three sisters battles her own demons. Then there's the whole backdrop of the Catholic church and the parade of fellow swimmers, most of whom seem one-dimensionally mean.

The ending goes on for a long time. Both the author and heroine seem to have lost their way. Philomena doesn't seem to have moved emotionally beyond her scarred family. Perhaps a star athlete necessarily becomes too involved to remain connected with life. But Philomena had a superb college education. She had experiences that must have contributed to her growth. And yet she seems to be back where she was at the beginning of the novel: out of place, confused and rudderless. I keep thinking of a rocket that escapes gravity, only to fizzle and fall back to earth, a hollow shell of its former self.

Throughout the book, I kept wanting to shake the heroine and say, "Move on. Get over it." Of course if she did, the genre would be more like chick lit or women's fiction. It's the constant battle with adversity, combined with the flawless writing, that keeps Swimming in the realm of literary fiction.