This is a beautiful book of love at a difficult period in history. I found the historical backdrop really insightful and this along with such wonderful characters took me on an emotional journey that I felt privileged to be part of while reading this book.

Set in Poland in the 1980s, this book centres around a young graduate - Ludwik who falls in love over the summer when he meets Janusz. This intense relationship is kept secret due to the layers of shame that have built up through internalised homophobia, societal discrimination and an oppressive government. 

Here Jedrowski is able to realistically portray how the political context in which we live acts not only as a backdrop to our lives but also impacts us directly. From subtle changes in a local community to life altering circumstances - we can see how the political can influence and alter our daily lives. The writing here is not prescriptive but it reads as an organic development of the plot.

The characterisation in this novel fell a little weak for me, which may in part be intentional. Within the first person narration of Ludwik, he is working through the shame felt through his internalised homophobia and there is perhaps little interrogation into Ludwik’s character as he is avoiding this self reflection out of shame. However this lack of characterisation is also extended to the other characters - especially his close friends, who felt I didn’t not really get much depth into their personalities, thoughts or aspirations. 

The central relationship felt like the weight of this novel and the emotional intensity kept me invested in the storyline. I would say that a good pairing would be Open Water, by Caleb Azumah Nelson as they both touch on this idea of ‘water’ as having the capacity to free oneself from the shame or the emotional weight of societal expectations. Also they both seem to be influenced by the work of James Baldwin which is always a plus!

A beautifully sentimental, heartbreaking novel surrounding queerness in Poland during a declining communist regime. The narrator is writing to a lover he had while living in Poland during the 1980s - telling their stories of love and desire back to him, and laying out his thoughts and feelings surrounding their secret, hidden relationship. 

It’s incredibly heartbreaking to read, as the narrator (Ludwik) talks you through the beautiful scenes of him and his lover’s (Janusz) first meeting, how they bonded and fell in love. Then as the novel progresses the idyllic scene that you were first met with crumbles in so many ways. Ultimately the need to escape, be accepted and to live in freedom comes between them. Ludwik wants to escape the brutalities of his hometown, whereas Janusz is eager to make use of the advantages given to him - accepting his life this way.

Jedrowski does a brilliant job of showing life under such a corrupt and dangerous regime. It’s incredibly harrowing.
What a brilliant, eye-opening book.
Will be researching more into  the LGBTQ+ community in Poland and its history since this read.

Ludwik, the narrator of Swimming in the Dark is looking back from exile at his slightly younger self in 1980 Poland. 18 year old Ludwik falls in love with Janusz at a  agricultural working camp, and has a blissful summer trip with him, swimming, camping in the forest and making love. Back in Warsaw, the harsh realities of adult life under Gierek's repressive regime come into focus, and both young men have to make choices about who they are and how they want to live. Tomasz Jedrowski has written a brilliant lyrical story of first love, politics and sacrifice.

I'm not sure there are words to describe how stunning this book is. 

There are the obvious comparisons to Call MY By Your Name but that doesn't do it justice as this is infinitely better. Swimming in the Dark is a novel that can't be compared to anything else purely because Jedrowski's writing is so beautiful and poetic. Each page had me falling in love which forced me to read it slowly to savour every word.

Quite an unusual book and I liked that it was inspired by James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room which I loved.  A story of gay love in 1980s Poland and the challenges of being who you are under such a regime. A coming of age, coming out story, tender and raw.

I thought this was a powerful and impressive first novel which did a great job of conveying the constraints of the political climate in question. In my opinion the editor could have advised the author to rein it in on the similes etc - this detracted from my appreciation of the story and the writing, which is otherwise excellent.

This is a beautiful, tender exploration of forbidden love. I really loved the style of writing and the way the key relationship was presented.

A tender story of gay love set in Communist Poland - which draws explicitly on James Baldwin's “Giovanni's Room”. but could also be said to merge Garth Greenwell with Milan Kundera

The formatting on my Kindle made this unreadable unfortunately. I've been reading excellent reviews for this now that it's been released though so I'll buy it instead!

An aching book of finding freedom and missing the cage. 1980s Poland is grim and being gay is grimmer. Good prose, elegiac and deeply intimate

I really enjoyed this, and am pleased to say that it kept my attention from beginning to end.  There is a lot to consider whilst reading this book, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Heartbreaking, raw, full of angst. Plus communism. There's nothing like being "different" under an oppressive political system who endeavours to control even the thoughts of its citizens. 
A slim but complex novel: a coming of age, sexual turmoil and coming to terms with own sexuality, a in depth portrait of Poland on the brink of overturning the oppressive communist regime.

This book is an outstanding piece of gay fiction. It is an emotionally powerful, yet tender, coming of age drama that completely absorbed me in its love story which is set against a back drop of 1980s communist Poland. This was a period in history that I was unfamiliar with and I found it a real eye opener.

The story is told  through the eyes of Ludwik Glowacki, almost like an open letter as he reminisces about the challenges of growing up in a country under Soviet rule, where both being gay and an independent thinker sets him at odds with those around him. His emotional sense of loneliness is palpable in this book, Ludwik not only struggles with coming to terms with being gay but also finding a voice in a society that only wants conformity. 

The forbidden relationship with Janusz is beautiful in its simplicity and it is through him that Ludwik starts to make sense of the world. However, sometimes love is not enough to conquer all. I definitely don’t want to spoil anything, all I will say is there is one line in this book that is like a gut punch and had me in tears on my commute.

Beautiful, touching, heart breaking ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of five

A sad and melancholy tale of a forbidden gay relationship in 1980s Poland, a story of loss and betrayal. It’s narrated by Ludwik, who on a compulsory school work camp meets and falls in love with Janusz. Although his feelings are reciprocated, Janusz is not prepared to compromise his future for a love that must always remain hidden. For me the most interesting aspect of the novel is the glimpse it gives of daily life in Poland at that time, life under a harsh Communist regime, with political unrest simmering in the background – the repression, censorship, shortages, endless queues, and rampant corruption. There’s no place for gay love under such a regime and there’s no place for Ludwik, who unlike Janusz, is not willing to compromise his feelings for personal advancement. An excellent and moving read.

Beneath the heavy shade of Communist Poland, university student Ludwik Glowacki tries to conceal himself: to conceal his homosexuality, his forbidden idealism, his banned books. During an obligatory agricultural camp he encounters Janusz, whose astonishing physical beauty enthrals Ludwik. Slowly, the two are drawn together, and they spend the remainder of the summer discussing banned book Giovanni’s Room, swimming in the lake, and becoming increasingly enamoured with one another. Once they are back in Warsaw, the two attempt to continue their relationship in secret under the oppressive Party’s regime. The reality of the inequalities of adulthood and the differing ways in which Ludwik and Janusz respond to their respective trials drives the two progressively further apart, until they are at last forced to turn their backs on each other forever. 

The slow but inevitable separation of two lovers by external circumstances may be a common trope used in LGBT+ novels, but I find it difficult to criticise Jedrowski for adopting it when the resulting project is as gorgeous as Swimming in the Dark. His prose is so bewitching that it could distract me from much larger evils than conventionality. Each scene transpires under a heady, luscious mist of sensuality, casting a yearning romanticism over the novel further supplemented by its retrospective epistolary form. Ludwik, now living in the United States, reaches out to his former lover in a letter that will never be sent, a forlorn cry into the void. From the outset, the reader is privy to the knowledge that these two young men are doomed, and every new chapter is met with a renewed sense of dread as the unavoidable agony of separation creeps closer.   

Jedrowski’s utilisation of the separation narrative is individualised insofar as its primary focus being on political differences rather than the more commonplace one is closeted but one is not trope. The major conflict between Ludwik and Janusz does not originate in one wishing for a public-facing relationship while the other hopes to maintain obscurity, manifesting instead in the incompatibility of their moral boundaries. Janusz is far less concerned with integrity than Ludwik, and is happy to use his beauty as a tool to schmooze his way into Party social circles if it furthers his own cause. When an opportunity of escape presents itself to Janusz, he hesitates, happy to be one of the prosperous few in an oppressive society, even if he has acquired that prosperity through disingenuous means. Meanwhile, Ludwik grapples with the dilemma of whether to enlist Janusz’s help, against his own principles, in order to jump his increasingly ill landlady forward in the ever longer hospital waiting lists. It is the tragic experience of the reader to acknowledge the glaring incompatibility of the two men long before they realise it themselves, and to observe as they struggle desperately to avoid destruction.

The fleshy embrace of Ludwik and Janusz’ sexual relationship binds them together almost as much as it separates them from the bleak world just outside of Janusz’s flat. Ludwik speaks of this innominate, bodily plane thus while the two change in a swimming bath locker room: “we took off our roles along with our clothes, and only belonged to the anonymous world of bodies.” [page 114] The tragedy is that this world of bodies does not extend quite enough to overrule reality, as much as they may wish it to. Swimming in the Dark is a novel about desperately clutching at a futile endeavour, and about the blinding allure of love and sexuality which threatens to pull us from our own integrity. 

That this is a debut novel is in itself staggering. Tomasz Jedrowski has crafted a work of both impressive maturity and poignant beauty, and deserves to be watched with great interest as he progresses further in his authorial career.

An impressive debut written in English by a German born author with Polish heritage focuses on the relationship between two young men set in Poland during  the late 70’s/early 80’s at a time of great unrest.
The pair meet at a summer work camp picking beetroots and the development of this blossoming connection is handled very effectively. Behind much of this lies another book, “Giovanni’s Room” by American author James Baldwin, a suppressed text which main character and narrator Ludwik glues between the covers of another publication becoming the link which forges he and Janusz closer together. 
This relationship is threatened by the atmosphere in Poland and the political differences between the two men. The whole narrative is directed towards Janusz as an explanation behind the actions and feelings Ludwik had at the time which he could not express to him face to face. The difficulties of dealing with same sex attraction at different times and places appears in many novels I have read but I feel that these stories need telling and retelling and this literary work is a very welcome addition to this.
My slight quibble is to do with the number of chance encounters the two men seem to have but maybe when attraction is that strong they can’t avoid the pull of fate that places them in similar locations at the same time.  It had the feel of Andre Aciman’s “Call Me By Your Name” which became an Oscar winning film, especially stylistically in this book’s more languid moments but I think I may have enjoyed Jedrowski’s novel slightly more

‘We’ve always been a secret, Ludwik. It’s just that until now there was no one to hide from.’

OK, let’s get the ‘for fans of…’ bit over with. Yes, there are echoes of Hollinghurst, of Aciman, of Philippe Besson. But the book that is at the heart of this new debut novel from Tomasz Jedrowski is James Baldwin’s ‘Giovanni’s Room’ – both in terms of its social politics and because the central characters both read the book during the course of the novel.

Set in early 1980s Poland, the story of twenty-two-year-old Ludwik and the enigmatic Janusz is replayed by the older Ludwik as he writes perhaps a letter, perhaps just his memories, looking back at their brief relationship from his new home in New York. Sent to educational camp, they take off once it is over and spend an idyllic few weeks camping by a remote lake, falling in love and escaping from the real world. This moment of Edenic existence soon comes to an end as they have to re-enter the real world, and very soon the social and political upheaval of 1980’s Warsaw comes to define their relationship. As Ludwik becomes more and more involved in the resistance to martial law and social injustice, Janusz gets a job in the Office of Press Control and sees how he must ‘fit in’ with the political situation. This theme of the book gives it its strength, and as Ludwik tries to start a doctorate on the theme of racism in the (other) novels of James Baldwin – ‘Giovanni’s Room’ not being published in Poland – the parallels between the two works create a deeper structure to Jedrowski’s work.

As the relationship gets strained, and Ludwik finds himself caught up in a group of friends with power and influence, he and Janusz must come to terms with their sexuality, and make tough choices. When Ludwik makes the decision to apply for a passport in order to leave the country, past events come to haunt him and he has to fight for his freedom. The final resolution is as heart-breaking as it is inevitable.

Jedrowski is an interesting writer, and chose to write this in English rather than Polish. At times, perhaps as a result of a debut novel, the prose is a little overwrought, the metaphors a little too heavy-handed. But get past this and some of the writing is superb, handling the sensitive love affair with lyricism and real understanding. And, always, the spectre of Communist Poland lurks in the background, giving this an intellectual depth and a wider political context. This background gives a setting for a book that explores identity, sexuality and finding a space for being yourself. Touching, intelligent and well-written, this is a definite recommend. 4 stars, and I look forward to much more from this promising writer. 

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

This is a story about homosexual love in Poland when it was still under communist control in the 1960s. The central character, Ludwik Glowacki, has a first teenage relationship with Beniek - who turns out to be Jewish - but his family, faced with anti-Semitism in Poland, go to Israel. Ludwik then has a couple of other rather more unsavoury encounters and, finally, meets Janusz with whom he falls in love.

There is an interesting tension in their relationship from the start. Ludwik is almost careless in expressing forbidden affections but Janusz seems to have a better understanding of how the world works. However, they still manage to have a camping holiday together and develop a proper relationship. Meanwhile, Ludwik explores the possibility of a further degree at his old university.

As the book develops the difference in their outlooks begins to drive them apart. Janusz now has a girlfriend and a job in the government and knows that he has to maintain much more of a front. Ludwik doesn't cope well with this and it causes problems. Hania, the girlfriend turns out to have a father who has close links to the leadership of the country so she throws good parties and lives well.

Everything comes to a head when Ludwik's application for a doctorate is rejected and it turns out that the police have files on him identifying him as a sexual deviant. He was betrayed by one of his earlier encounters. The only way for him to get a passport and visa for the United States is through Hania and the price he has to pay is to admit his homosexuality to her, admit his corrupt desire for Janusz and claim that Janusz has no knowledge of this and thinks they are simply friends. She has an incentive to see the back of him, pull strings to get a passport and visa for him and then marries Janusz.

It's a sad ending and nostalgic for Ludwik settled in the United States and telling the story from there. It's a story in which love fails to conquer all but it is sweetly told and has a neat sting in its tail. It's worth a read!

This is a lyrical story of love and loss. Written from a first-person perspective, it is largely a reflection on experiences in the past that is a coming of age set in a turbulent period in history. As such, it is, to a certain extent, similar to The Riddle of the Sphinx by Alexandre Montagu. Such stories provide a social documentary from a personal perspective, which counterbalances the evolution of the personal relationship described.

There is limited tension and given that it is reflective, it is clear that the central character survives. Consequently, the writing style and pace is not hurried. That said, there are jumps in time that seem to reflect the memories related rather than being inherently central to the plot.

The romance between the central characters does relate moments of passion, but these are not described in detail, rather emphasise the emotions involved.

The story concludes without resolution, as it is presented as a snapshot of the past rather than a story with a plotline.

The writing is approachable and it is not a lengthy read, as such it provides and interesting and pleasant diversion.