The Night Swimmers, Peter Rock
The Night Swimmers, Peter Rock
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Night Swimmers

Author: Peter Rock

Narrator: Graham Halstead

Unabridged: 5 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/12/2019

Categories: Fiction, Family Life


Synopsis

Beneath the surface of Lake Michigan there are vast systems: crosscutting currents, sudden drop-offs, depths of absolute darkness, shipwrecked bodies, hidden places. Peter Rock's stunning autobiographical novel begins in the '90s on the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin. The narrator, a recent college graduate, and a young widow, Mrs. Abel, swim together at night, making their way across miles of open water, navigating the currents and swells carried by the rise and fall of the lake. The nature of these night swims, and of his relationship to Mrs. Abel, becomes increasingly mysterious to the narrator as the summer passes, until the night that Mrs. Abel disappears.

Twenty years later, the narrator—now married with two daughters—tries to understand those months, his forgotten obsessions and dreams. Digging into old notebooks and letters, as well as clippings he's preserved on the "psychic photography" of Ted Serios and scribbled quotations from Rilke and Chekhov, the narrator rebuilds a world he's lost—those searching and uncertain drives, his vague wish to be a writer. He also searches for clues to the fate of Mrs. Abel, and begins once again to swim distances in dark water.

About Peter Rock

Peter Rock is the author of ten works of fiction, including My Abandonment, which won the Alex Award and was adapted into the film Leave No Trace. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and is a professor of creative writing at Reed College. He lives in Portland with his wife and two daughters.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Peter on April 16, 2019

I loved writing this book! I hope it shows. For now I'll give it five stars, though that might change with time.......more

Goodreads review by switterbug (Betsey) on December 28, 2018

There’s nothing like diving into a novel with depth. And Peter Rock certainly shows us the depths of Lake Michigan and his love of night swimming in open water, as he looks back, age 50, to the summer of 1994, when he was 26 and a recent college grad. I share Rock’s love of swimming, so I just about......more

Goodreads review by Jill on December 28, 2018

Much of who we are and what influences us lies right below the surface— “shadowy figures, shards of other times, glimpses into thickets of trees, rooms of houses I’ve never been inside.” For our unnamed narrator, who is certainly Peter Rock, an influence has always been Mrs. Abel, a mysterious 40-so......more

Goodreads review by Susan on March 24, 2019

I like weird. I like swimming. I like stories about other writers. And I like a good mystery. So when I picked up Peter Rock's new novel, a semi-autobiographical foray into all of the above, I signed on with enthusiasm. "Beneath the surface of Lake Michigan there are vast systems: crosscutting currents,......more

Goodreads review by Michelle on March 06, 2020

What am I missing?! The book was recommended on some list (which I've forgotten). I've also forgotten the why it was recommended. How could a book go awry with my favorites: water, the night, swimming? And yet, it was a challenge to read. Please help me to understand.......more