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Swimming Lessons

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Sometimes you start a book and, within the first couple of pages, know it's going to be one of those books that you can't put down. And then other times, the start of the story doesn't really grab you. But you stick with it because you just have a feeling...
When Flora rushes home to be by the side of her injured father, she knows there will be unpleasant memories to face. The disappearance/presumed death of her mother has haunted the family for years. And it doesn't help matters that her dad believes he's seen her around town recently. Can Flora finally discover the truth about what happened? And what other secrets will be uncovered in the process?
This is one of those stories that got better and better with each page. Suspenseful, yes. But not in the manner you'd expect. The story unfolds bit by bit, alternating between past and present and largely in the form of letters left behind by Flora's mother. And the ending is good, still leaving some questions unanswered as many great stories do.

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This is such a beautiful book. I loved the setting and the characters. Pleasant read.

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I kept coming back to this book hoping that I could get into it but never could. It was flat and unappealing with a confusing ending.

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To what extent can one go on living with the unknown? Gil is thumbing through books at the second-hand bookshop when he is visited by his missing/presumed dead wife both on the page before him and through the window in front of him. Is this merely a delusion of an old man nearing the end of his life, or could Ingrid really be out there? Certainly daughter number 2 Flora believes in the possibility, though daughter number 1 Nan is much more skeptical - or should we say practical. The daughters are called home to care for their ailing father and again grapple with their mother's disappearance, her existence as a wife and mother and their father's many misdeeds. Meanwhile, the reader gets the inside story from Ingrid herself.

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I loved this book. I thought the alternating POVs worked very nicely; contrasting the hidden letters written by the mother with the modern story of the girls and their father. I enjoyed the unexpected twists in the plot and found the ending very satisfying.

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I give very few five-star reviews, but i think this is one of those special books. I read it twice cover-to-cover, just to understand what happened, but only in the very best way. Highly recommended.

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My initial attraction to this novel came from its premise: a wife disappears and a series of letters left in the pages of books to explain her actions? No one knows if she is dead or alive? An aging father and a wayward daughter? Check, check, and check. Sounds like a great weekend read to me!

And for the most part, this book did not disappoint. Fuller's writing is lyrical and mesmerizing. I often caught myself getting caught in the musicality of many of her sentences. And I certainly became invested in finding out exactly what caused the friction amongst the Colemans.

But this book was less page-turner mystery and more intriguing character study than I was expecting. The exploration of Ingrid and Gil's relationship and marriage kept me shifting my sympathies amongst the characters, and as a result the family members and friends seemed more fully fleshed out and "human" than in other stories. Through their parties, their fights, and of course, their writing, the full scope of Gil's narcissism and Ingrid's motivations to disappear come to light.

The ending, for me, felt a bit abrupt and left more questions than answers, though I simply may have missed something.

I would recommend this book, particularly to those who enjoy a more introspective, character-driven literary novel. High quality work and intriguing premise!

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After finishing Swimming Lessons, I'm a little sad I don't have any more novels to read by Claire Fuller. I read Our Endless Numbered Days earlier this year and loved the fairy tale-like quality to the story, and Swimming Lessons evokes a similar response from me. Swimming Lessons is about a woman named Ingrid who writes letters to her husband Gil. Instead of delivering the letters to him directly, Ingrid leaves the letters in topically relevant books that Gil has scattered all over his house. After leaving her final letter, Ingrid leaves and disappears from a beach in Dorset, leaving behind her husband and two daughters with unanswered questions. Twelve years after her disappearance, Gil – older and suffering from the effects of age – thinks he sees Ingrid in a bookshop and falls, hurting himself. Flora, his daughter, returns home to care for her father. Flora doesn't believe that her mother died, only disappeared. While caring for her father, Flora begins to discover the answers to her questions about her mother's life and disappearance in the books quite literally stacked all through her father's home.

I was hesitant to start this one because I wanted to read Our Endless Numbered Days first. I'm weird and sometimes like to read an author's work in publication order. After completely devouring Fuller's first novel in just a few days, I started reading this one almost immediately after. Fuller has a gift in transforming family tragedies and terrors into a story of mythical allure. I also have a soft spot for epistolary novels or books that incorporate letters and other forms of text communication, and Swimming Lessons does just that. I loved reading Ingrid's thoughts throughout the years of her marriage, of her family, of herself, and seeing how the present day family reacts and responds to Ingrid's letters.

I've already talked about this book a lot to some of my customers at work and a few of my acquaintances, and I tell them, if you enjoy books about books and reading and letter writing with a family mystery tied into it all, you'll really like this one. My favorite bits had to be the letters because Ingrid's voice just felt so immediate and emotional. However, if you don't like ambiguous endings, beware. You don't get all of the questions answered, and you'll be left thinking about the possibilities of hope and the reminders of grief once you're through. I read it during some warm February days, and it's the perfect kind of novel to read with the soft warmth of the day wafting through the windows.

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Just could not get into this novel no matter how hard I tried. I did not connect with the characters, the words felt stilted, the characters one dimensional.

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I rarely, if ever, grant a 5-star rating, but if there was a way to do so, I would give this book 4.5 stars.

I read *a lot*...which often means that characters and details of a book I read a month (or sometimes even a week ago) tend not to stick with me. I'll recall that I did or didn't like the book, but not so much they why... I finished reading it awhile ago, but I still remember the characters vividly. I had sympathy/empathy for all of the main characters -- which is unusual. The situation, how it changed over time, the juxtaposition between current day and past (via notes), the sense of mystery about what happened to one of the main characters... The importance of books in all sorts of ways...

This book will not be a waste of your time. You will feel it long after you finish it. Thank you, NetGalley...it was a very very good read!

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SWIMMING LESSONS & OUR ENDLESS NUMBERED DAYS

Last fall I began to notice a lot of buzz around Claire Fuller’s upcoming book, Swimming Lessons. So many had loved her debut novel, Our Endless Numbered Days, and they were eager to read her second. I’d somehow missed Fuller’s debut, so decided to squeeze it in last month. Within just a couple of weeks I read both of Fuller’s novels and am reviewing them together today.

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

The Novels of Claire Fuller | Review

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SWIMMING LESSONS & OUR ENDLESS NUMBERED DAYS

Last fall I began to notice a lot of buzz around Claire Fuller’s upcoming book, Swimming Lessons. So many had loved her debut novel, Our Endless Numbered Days, and they were eager to read her second. I’d somehow missed Fuller’s debut, so decided to squeeze it in last month. Within just a couple of weeks I read both of Fuller’s novels and am reviewing them together today.

Swimming Lessons is the story of a mother who vanished many years ago and the daughter longing to know why. Flora has returned to her childhood home to help care for her dying father who believes he has seen his missing wife, Ingrid. Swimming Lessons, unfolds on two planes: the present with Flora and her father, and the past where Ingrid writes letters to Gil grieving a marriage that was in trouble from the start. Flora adores her father, but cannot let go of the hope that Ingrid, who left her at 9, might reappear in her life. (Tin House Books, 356 pages, 2/7/17)

Our Endless Numbered Days is Peggy’s story. At 8-years old, Peggy and her survivalist father set out on what is supposed to be a summer vacation. They hike deep, deep in the woods to a dilapidated cabin. Peggy doesn’t come out of those woods for 9 years. At eight, Peggy believes whatever James tells her: her mother is dead, the rest of the world has simply fallen away, they are the last two people on Earth. She is devoted to James. He is literally her entire world. As Peggy grows older, fighting for survival winter after winter, she’s forced to see her father through a new lens. (Tin House Books, 382 pages, 3/17/15)

Review: Though the premises of Fuller’s two novels could not have been more different, their basic structures were strikingly similar. Let’s look at some of those similarities and where it was done better.

EGO-CENTRIC FATHERS

In Our Endless Numbered Days, Fuller treats us to a very original character in James. This is a man zealous about two things: survivalism and his daughter. James is obsessed with finding a way to make his family safe before certain disaster arrives. He also adores his daughter. When the real world James lives in becomes more complex than he can navigate, he knows best, takes his daughter and flees. There is much that is not quite right about James.

Swimming Lessons delivers Gil, a once successful author, who gets what he wants. Gil most wants a family (though we’re never really sure why) and when the student Gil’s been having an affair with turns up pregnant, he couldn’t be happier. In rapid succession Gil marries her, moves her to the small seaside village he’s from, and then goes on living the same sort of life he always has. Gil has a “writing shed” at his home. No one is allowed in it, but him. Gil spends his days and most nights out there, but strangely produces very little writing. Still, he loves having his family nearby.

Winner: For me it’s Gil. There was very little to like about Gil. He was always out for Gil with almost no consideration for the women in his life. There was certainly a lot about James not to like, but he was a little less about himself and a little more pathetic.

MOMS THAT LEAVE

Ute, Peggy’s mother in Our Endless Numbered Days, was a concert pianist. She needed to go on tour because it was what she loved and because she was the sole support of her family. Because James took Peggy when Ute was on one of her concert tours, it’s difficult not to put some blame on her. Surely she saw how strange James was acting, how out of touch with reality he seemed to be getting, and yet she left her daughter with him.

The whole story in Swimming Lessons revolves around Ingrid leaving. Fuller did a beautiful job showing the reader why Ingrid might want to just vanish. Through a series of letters to Gil, Ingrid not only recounts the history of their relationship, but lays out why she feels like everyone might be better off without her. I felt sorry for her, but I also wanted to slap her!

Winner: This is a difficult choice. Ingrid leaving permanently (versus Ute going on tour) seems a more devastating choice and it certainly was for Flora and her sister, Nan. But, when Ute left Peggy with James the result for her child was far worse. So I have to give this one to Ute.

DAUGHTERS WHO LOVE THEIR DADS

In Our Endless Numbered Days, Peggy really adored her dad. He was the fun parent from the very start. He’d let her miss school to go on adventures with him, he was always interested in what she had to say and would try to teach her things. When they’re at the cabin James is all Peggy has. She believes the rest of the world is gone and Peggy clings fiercely to James for a long time. It’s only as she gets older, that Peggy begins to see cracks in the things her father has told her. Even when Peggy is back with her mother, she still loves the father who was really her captor for nine long years.

Even before her mother vanished in Swimming Lessons, Flora was a “Daddy’s Girl.” Perhaps because he was so often gone, every minute she spent with him was special. When he was gone for long periods of time, Flora drove Ingrid crazy asking about him. After Ingrid’s disappearance, Flora’s loyalty to her father was unwavering. He was still absent from much of her day-to-day life, spending most of his time in the “writing shed,” but Flora happily turned a blind eye to all of Gil’s eccentricities. Much of the story is about Flora opening her eyes to both her parent’s flaws.

Winner: Easily, Peggy. Peggy’s unwavering love of her father made perfect sense. He was all she had from the time she was eight years old until she was seventeen. All. And still, part of her was able to see through that love and realize something was off with her father. On the other hand, Flora lived with her father and sister in a town and was out in the world. She grew up around other people, had access to the world, went off to college, and still was unwilling to see her father’s foibles.

CONCLUSION

I think both of Claire Fuller’s novels are very good. I was captivated by Our Endless Numbered Days right from the start. Peggy was an amazing, insightful narrator. I liked how her story moved back and forth between the time James and Peggy were in the cabin and when Peggy was back with Ute. It was a book that was hard to put down. Swimming Lessons was a little harder to become immersed in. I didn’t really feel it picked up until about the halfway point. While Peggy was a character I adored, connecting with the characters in Swimming Lessons was more difficult. I liked Ingrid the most, but also was frustrated with her lack of gumption.

I enjoyed getting to know Ingrid and her story through the letters she was writing to Gil. It was an excellent choice on Fuller’s part. She had Flora experience people in terms of scent and color. I grew to anticipate her impression of each new person. In both books Fuller’s writing is wonderfully clear and thoughtful. Her prose are easy to read with just the perfect amount of description. From Our Endless Numbered Days:

“The rhythm of our days cocooned me, reassured and comforted me. I slipped onto it without thought, so that the life we lived – in an isolated cabin on a crust of land, with the rest of the world simply wiped away, like a damp cloth passed across a chalked blackboard – became my unquestioned normality.”

If you only have time for one Claire Fuller book, I recommend Our Endless Numbered Days, but both are worth reading.

Swimming Lessons – Grade: B
Our Endless Numbered Days – Grade: A

Note: I received a copy of Swimming Lessons from the publisher (via Net Galley) in exchange for my honest review.

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Before you go too far, please note that there are some things you might not want to know about, closer to the end of this post, if you've not already read this novel and are planning to in the future!

After my love affair with Claire Fuller's debut novel, Our Endless Numbered Days, I assumed that Swimming Lessons was going to be one of my favorite books of early 2017. As expected, the writing is beautiful, raw and emotionally-charged; Fuller's talent with words continues to inspire and forces me to stop reading, often mid-sentence, to contemplate the messages she has crafted.

The publisher's description (the blurb) led me to believe that this novel would be about a married woman and mother, Ingrid, who has written letters to her husband, Gil, and left them in different books within his vast collection; after she finishes writing these letters, she "disappears." Years later, Gil believes that he has spotted her in their small town, providing hope to both he and one of their daughters, as neither of them has ever believed in Ingrid's death.

"In the hallway, towering piles of books lined the walls all the way to the kitchen. Precarious columns of paperbacks and hardbacks with cracked spines and dust jackets rose like eroded sea stacks, their grey pages stratified rock."

Have you ever seen a trailer/promo for a movie and thought to yourself, "Oh, that looks great; I definitely want to see that film." When the film is released, you rush to the theater and discover that, unfortunately, the trailer held the best portions of the film and you wonder, "Is this it?" That's the same feeling I had when I ran out of pages in Swimming Lessons.

Page after page, I kept waiting for something, anything to change: for the plot to move along, for the characters to develop, for the story to unfold, for answers or mysteries to be revealed...but it never happened. Maybe this is the empty feeling that Fuller prefers to have readers experience? I could make an argument for this, that readers are left feeling as empty as the novel's characters, but it also felt very unsatisfying.

"‘A book becomes a living thing only when it interacts with a reader. What do you think happens in the gaps - the unsaid things, everything you don’t write? The reader fills them from their own imagination. But does each reader fill them how you want, or in the same way? Of course not.’"

Typically speaking, I can find at least one character with whom I am able to relate, connect, empathize but, in Swimming Lessons, I did not. Gil, a run-of-the-mill philandering college professor, not only sleeps with Ingrid when she was a student, but continues to have affairs with subsequent students after his marriage. Ingrid, through her letters to Gil, seems to be unaware (which makes me like her even less) and then shocked when she finds him with a student in his "writing room," a shed-like property adjacent to their home.

There were times when I found myself reminded of Fates and Furies by Lauren Goff; unfortunately, Swimming Lessons did not seem to equally utilize the power of perspective. Readers enjoy Ingrid's experience of her relationship to Gil (her letters are the best part of the novel), but there is no rebuttal.

"You brought me to this place, gave me children, and left; everything that’s ever happened to me in my adult life is because of you, and now you expect me to be able to manage on my own, like a fledgling deserted before being taught how to fly. And then it occurred to me that I survived that incident on the beach by myself; I didn’t need you or anyone else to rescue me. I did it on my own."

Did Gil read the letters? Does he feel guilty for his sexist, dishonest way of life, now that he is faced with his own mortality? How did his relationship with his wife affect his relationship with his daughters? Where are Flora and Nora, their two daughters, in all of this? I'm all for an ending that provides for multiple possibilities and leaves unanswered questions, but there were just so many other paths to travel that would have been much more significant and could have made me fall completely in love with this novel.

I'm sure that I am in the minority; I have already read many lovely, glowing reviews. I feel like I could've copied and pasted my review of Among the Ten Thousand Things, a highly-anticipated debut, by Julia Pierpont; I read it in 2015 and felt like I was the only person who didn't "get it." Turns out, I wasn't alone; we'll see what happens with this one.

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Wonderfully captivating family story which will stay with the reader long after the final page.

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Fuller's second novel (after the great but upsetting Our Endless Numbered Days) is the story of a family--or really, the story of a troubled marriage that ended when the wife disappeared--presumably drowned. Now it's years later and her husband (a famous writer) is sure he's seen her in passing on the street, but it's passed off as dementia as his daughters come to care for him. All of that is interspersed with the letters she wrote him--and hid in the books on his bookshelves--before she left. And those letters are so much more compelling than the modern stuff (none of those characters feel fully realized, especially the younger daughter's love interest who just hangs around to be an annoying fanboy--was I supposed to be rooting for them to make it?). I feel like there are so many literary novels about troubled jerkface writers cheating on their wives--and so I really found her perspective so interesting, as she deals with young motherhood, societal expectations, the loss of her own dreams, her philandering husband and his writing, etc. Emotional labor galore. I wish the book had just been her story because that's where it really shines--the rest is kind of sketchy. B/B+.

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Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller is a very highly recommended family drama/mystery. "Gil Coleman looked down from the first-floor window of the bookshop and saw his dead wife standing on the pavement below." Gil Coleman saw his dead wife, Ingrid, twelve years after she disappeared and followed her outside into the rain where he ended up falling and is hospitalized. It is discovered that Gil is dying from cancer. Daughters Nan and Flora meet at the family home. Gil's sighting of Ingrid is not believed by sensible Nan, who writes it off to senility, but Flora believes her mother is still alive.

Ingrid Coleman disappeared in 1992, leaving behind her older husband and two daughters. It was believed that she drowned since it was well known that she loved her daily swims in the sea, but her body was never found. Gil and Ingrid met in 1976 when she was a university student in his literature class. An affair starts, Ingrid discovers she is pregnant, and the two marry. Gil is dismissed from the university and the two settle in his family home in Dorset where Gil also has a writing cottage. But Gil is a womanizing philanderer and not even remotely faithful.

The rooms and halls of the family home are lined with thousands of books that Gil has collected over the years. It was the same way when Ingrid first moved in the house. As Ingrid learns more and more about Gil's character, she turns to writing letters. Her letters tell the brutally honest story of their marriage. After she finishes a letter, she tucks it into one of Gil's books where it awaits discovery. Each letter concludes with the name of the book in which that letter was hidden.

Swimming Lessons is told through two timelines. The present day shows Flora's perspective and the decline of Gil. The past is recounted through Ingrid's detailed letters, telling the story of their marriage. Through Ingrid's letters, the past is exposed and more and more secrets and betrayals are revealed in their troubled marriage.

This is an incredible, well-written book. I was engrossed and invested in the story from beginning to end. The writing is phenomenal. I loved the epistolary parts of the novel that tell the story of the early years through Ingrid point of view. I loved the juxtaposition of the present and the past. There are surprising revelations toward the end and an epilogue that adds depth. The characters are well developed and fully realized. The intricate story reaches a satisfactory conclusion that made me want to read Claire Fuller's first book asap.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of W.W. Norton & Company and Tin House Books
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/on1/29/17
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1895068837

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Thank you to Netgalley for letting me have a copy of this book for an honest review. Swimming Lessons the second book by Claire Fuller is a wonderful read and different from any other book I've read. It is told in both the present and the past, the difference being what is told in the past is done so through letters that are then placed inside of books. The novel is about relationships and lies and truths .Truths that the person who needs to know, never will.. Ingrid Coleman writes letters to her husband Gil about their marriage., she hides them in the many thousands of books Gil has collected over the years. After writing her final letter she disappears from a Dorchester beach leaving behind her husband and two daughters. Twenty years later Gil believes he has seen Ingrid in Hadleigh. Trying to follow her he nearly dies from a fall. We learn he is very ill. Flora seeks answers to her mother's disappearance, but her older sister Nan seems to have accepted that their mother, a very good swimmer possibly drowned. There is a great deal of emotion in Swimming Lessons and Claire Fuller has done an excellent job giving the reader well developed characters and story that pulls you in from the first page and does not let go until the last. I really enjoyed Swimming Lessons and one of the perspectives the story is told from is quite unique.

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3.5 We first meet Flora when she is driving home through the night, a night it rains fishes. Having heard her father has had an accident, she is trying to get to him to make sure he is alright, her sister Nan is there, but Flora has been a daddy's girl, and needs to see for herself. Her mother presumed dead from drowning, though Flora who shared her love of swimming with her mother, never believed her mother had drowned.

I was drawn to this book because of the synopsis, a woman who hides letters in books, letters to her husband, and this house has more books in it than even mine does. Way more. An interesting premise though and it is through these letters that we learn the story of Ingrid and Gil. This was also my favorite part and Ingrid is the most fleshed out character in the book.

This book was intriguing and frustrating, I really wanted to know what had happened to Ingrid. Kept reading, more story, no answers, when and would this be known? Not saying, but enjoyed the read. Different, somewhat quirky, Gil though easy to feel sorry for, I didn't much like after reading some of the letters. Easy to form opinions with this one, which I did. What a strange family, strange lifestyle. Hooked me though, enjoyed reading this and so, glad this is not my family.

ARC from Netgalley.
Release date: February 7th by Tin House books.

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Claire Fuller is a beautiful writer with the capacity to craft a sentence, or scene, that can send the reader off into spiraling thoughts of fancy or remembrance. Unfortunately, Swimming Lessons is not a good enough story; its plot is a standard cliche and rubs the wrong way. A young college girl, while imagining her exciting adult life, gets pregnant by her professor and they marry quickly. Fast forward twenty years and she has left him letters about their marriage in books around their home. She has also departed; leaving two daughters, one overly responsible, one overly rebellious. The father is remote, briefly famous and out of touch with his daughters, who of course, love him nonetheless. Fuller is much too good a writer to have spent time on this plot. Someone should have gently urged her towards something else.

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