The Swimmers

The pool is a central symbol in The Swimmers. It is mentioned in the first words of the novel and is the subject of the first section’s title. For some of the swimmers, the pool symbolizes an escape from the disappointing and frustrating aspects of their lives. For others, the pool symbolizes a source of healing, like medicine for their physical, mental, and emotional injuries. Ironically, this symbol of healing also represents addiction. The swimmers’ devotion to the pool is considered excessive by some, even pathological. They think about swimming in bed at night, and if they spend too much time away from the pool, they experience withdrawal symptoms like irritability, poor concentration, and anxiety.

On a broader level, the pool can be viewed as an alternate, parallel reality, a utopian version of life in which the swimmers are their best selves. Located deep underground “in a large cavernous chamber many feet beneath the streets of our town” (3) with the ceiling painted to look like a cloudy sky, the pool’s setting evokes conventional ideas of a parallel dimension. The pool has its own divisions and hierarchies, like its counterpart reality. It has deep and shallow ends; fast, medium, and slow lanes; terms for outsiders—”Land people, we say” (13)—and assumed binaries with its “separate but equal entrances for women and men” (16).