The Swimmer

“The Swimmer” is a short story by John Cheever that was originally published in The New Yorker in 1964. The story is told in third-person limited narration and utilizes elements of Surrealism. The narrative draws on the myth of Narcissus and alludes to Homer’s The Odyssey while exploring the dynamics of post–World War II American suburbia.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide include references to alcohol addiction.

“The Swimmer” opens on Neddy Merrill, an upper-middle-class suburbanite living in the Northeastern United States. Neddy and his wife, Lucinda, are enjoying a beautiful lazy summer Sunday drinking by the pool owned by their neighbors Donald and Helen Westerhazy. Along with all the other residents of the area, they complain that they “drank too much” the night before (Paragraph 1). Neddy decides that, rather than returning home from the Westerhazys’ by car, he will swim across every pool in the county to reach his house eight miles away. Envisioning this journey as an identity-affirming odyssey, Neddy imagines the line of suburban swimming pools as a newly-discovered stream, which he plans to name after his wife, Lucinda.

Neddy’s first stop after the Westerhazys’ is the Grahams’.