Deborah Levy
The opening pages of Swimming Home by Deborah Levy establish an atmosphere of impending disaster. Kitty Finch is behind the steering wheel, driving recklessly while telling her passenger she loves him. Her passenger is nervous and regrets sleeping with her. With that ominous prologue, we go back in time to the beginning of the week.
The setting is a tourist villa in Nice, France. Joe is on holiday with his wife, Isabel, and their fourteen-year-old daughter, Nina. With them are Isabel’s friend, Laura, and her husband, Mitchell. They wake up on a Saturday morning to find a woman floating in the swimming pool. Isabel dives into the pool to retrieve the woman who has, presumably, drowned. But the woman is not dead. Her face surfaces from the water, gasping for breath. Enter Kitty Finch. She emerges from the pool, stark naked.
What follows is a week in which the characters exhibit signs of depression and dysfunction. Joe, a poet, is haunted by a childhood trauma of being smuggled out of Nazi Poland as a five-year-old. His parents and two-year-old sister did not survive the Polish death camp. Isabel is a war correspondent haunted by images of carnage and dismembered bodies. Laura and Mitchell are shop owners who are losing their business. Nina is torn between her parents. And Kitty Finch is a certifiable manic depressive who is off her medications. Invited to stay with the group, she becomes the focus, weaving in and out of conversations while exhibiting frenetic behavior.
The characters clothe their personal demons in a restrained, external veneer. Kitty is the only character who fully exposes her demons and vulnerabilities, both physically and mentally. She is also the only character who spends much of her time prancing around in the nude.
Deborah Levy generates an atmosphere fraught with tension and dripping with a sense of menace. The plot, carefully and methodically constructed, leads to its inexorable and shocking conclusion. Levy moves through the characters revealing the extent of their depression through their interiority. The elusive Kitty flits among them, and despite her unpredictable mannerisms, she, alone, has insight into Joe and Isabel. Kitty has intentionally injected herself into the group for a purpose. It is not until the end of the novel that her purpose is revealed.
This is a compelling read with fleshed out, memorable characters, and an intricate plot which unfolds in precise, spare, and suggestive language. Shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, this short book packs a powerful punch.