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    The Swimmer
    The Swimmer
    The Swimmer
    Audiobook26 minutes

    The Swimmer

    Written by John Cheever

    Narrated by Meryl Streep, Ben Cheever and Peter Gallagher

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Here is one of twelve magnificent stories, originally part of The John Cheever Audio Collection, in which John Cheever celebrates—with unequaled grace and tenderness—the deepest feelings we have.

    As Cheever writes in his preface, ""These stories seem at times to be stories of a long-lost world when the city of New York was still filled with a river light, when you heard the Benny Goodman quartets from a radio in the corner stationery store, and when almost everybody wore a hat.""

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCaedmon
    Release dateSep 22, 2009
    ISBN9780061968716
    The Swimmer
    Author

    John Cheever

    John Cheever, best known for his short stories dealing with upper-middle-class suburban life, was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1912. Cheever published his first short story at the age of seventeen. He was the recipient of a 1951 Guggenheim Fellowship and winner of a National Book Award for The Wapshot Chronicle in 1958, the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Stories of John Cheever, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and an American Book Award. He died in 1982, at the age of seventy.

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    Reviews for The Swimmer

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Unusual and good story.Perhaps over the top on the evil USA

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      The last one hundred pages of this book were good but it took way too long to get to that point. The buildup is very slow and in many of the chapters the author does not reveal which character's perspective it was - maybe I am a bit dim but in some it took me quite a while to figure out which character it was. The plot revolves around some hidden information (photos and videos) and the desire by some that they do not get out. In my opinion the top notch authors of international intrigue have little to worry about here.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This is a first novel that will appeal to anyone who is taken with conspiracy theories. It might be subtitled, "Don't piss off the CIA." That agency is presented as the ultimate evil, working within a corrupt but stable political system, it does what it wants to whomever it wants, whenever it wants to. That includes allies of the U.S., such as the EU. The novel also stipulates that once an image is in cyberspace, it retains its power even if no-one is aware of it, and even though the image may be decades old. Zander articulates the belief that spies are like members of the mafia: participants in a lifelong process that can just as easily kill as it rewards. People in the spying business lose their personal worlds and their families and become close to no-one but their professional peers. The system will defend itself violently against any perception of danger, sacrificing whomever it chooses to safeguard its secret world.
    • 5/5
      A young man's life ends abruptly and tragically and Roma Tearne explores the devastating impact that this has on the significant women in his life. This is a desperately sad book but the writing is so beautiful that it somehow softens the pain. Roma's insights are so deep and her exploration of immigration and loss are both thought provoking and insightful. I simply love her writing and this book is as wonderful as her others.
    • 4/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this spy thriller with a little human interest element thrown in. I appreciated that the family side of the story was not mushy and overly sentimental. If you enjoy the talent and wisdom of a spy who has been around the block too many times to count, I recommend this one. We also get a good look at the generation coming along behind him so there could be sequels.
    • 5/5
      Whoa! John Cheever. One of the best!! A must listen, over and again.
    • 4/5
      Ria, poet, is living in a Suffolk village, in the house left to her by her uncle. Her brother, Jack, political activist, wants her to sell the house and split the proceeds with him. Their sibling relationship has been deeply troubled since the death of their father.The normally peaceful village is aghast at the recent incidents of animals having their throats slit.One swelteringly hot summer's evening Ria sees a swimmer in her stretch of the river. The swimmer emerges from the river, dresses, and walks through her garden. Another day they meet, and a relationship develops, despite a large difference in their ages and cultural backgrounds. Ben is from Sri Lanka, a Tamil, and is seeking political asylum in Britain, away from the persecution of Tamils back home.There is an interesting interplay between the main characters and friends and villagers. When tragedy strikes it has long term repercussions for many.A great read!
    • 3/5
      An enjoyable, if run-of-the-mill, thriller. Usual CIA-are-the-bad-guys trope. Nothing especially unique, but will appeal to fans of Chris Pavone or Olen Steinhauer.
    • 4/5
      European Union lawyer Joakim Zander’s debut spy thriller, The Swimmer, takes Scandinavian literature to new heights, thrills and delightful twists. Klara Walldéen, an EU Parliament aide has accidently come across a laptop with information she should have never come across which leads her to run for her life. Only one person can help her, the father she never knew, is a deep uncover CIA agent in Virginia, will he be able to track Klara and save her before it is too late? The Swimmer is a taught, riveting, and intense spy thriller that easily keep this reader eagerly turning the pages trying to guess what will happen next. Zander’s writing is exceptional and brings back the traditional, non-formatted spy thriller written mainly in third person and told from various perspectives, which I truly enjoyed. His storyline and plot twists are solid and his characters are quite believable and relatable. Joakim Zander is a new author to watch and The Swimmer is a must read for anyone who enjoys an intense thriller.
    • 4/5
      A penetrating novel, given the fact it’s Zaner’s debut, the impact even more prevalent. Translated from Zander’s native tongue of Swedish absolutely nothing is missed, translation is superb.The plot is full of suspense and subterfuge. Gripping, will hold your attention throughout as you burn through the pages absorbed by varying characters and riveting narrative, the plot rather intricate. Fast paced, you won’t be able to put the book down.The characters come to life as each one is masterfully pulled into the narrative. The characters are clearly the building blocks, Klara the apex. Aging CIA agent, political aide, black ops all creating a vibrant cast with vital roles, all intriguing.Zander describes environs in a rich manner. The reader will feel part of Brussels as well as the isolated Scandinavian island locations. Zander’s simplistic yet strong writing completes the thrilling reading adventure.A well crafted political suspense/thriller addressing guilt, revenge and redemption. Great ending, highly impressed with Zander, a wonderful indicator of a successful writing career. Looking forward to more from Joakim Zander.
    • 3/5
      Ria is a poet who lives alone in the small East Anglian town of Ipswich, surrounded by small minded and nosy neighbors who are isolated from their fellow Britons, and fearful of the immigrants that are slowly infiltrating the country and their region. Her only close living relative is her brother Jack, a bully interested in right-wing politics who frequently harasses and troubles her, along with his less than lovable wife and children, and she is not particularly friendly with anyone in town, whose citizens view her with suspicion as an outsider who has returned from London to live amongst them.Ria's uneasy peace is disrupted one night as she spots a man emerging from a swim in the river adjacent to her home. She eventually meets him, and learns that he is a young doctor from Sri Lanka who has fled his troubled country for the safety of England, and works on a nearby farm while he waits for his application for political asylum to be processed. At the same time, there are a series of crimes being committed by a person of color in the region, along with increased suspicions from the townspeople that a group of foreign terrorists are hiding nearby, which leads to greater scrutiny of Ria and her home as she and the young man become ever closer.The Swimmer describes a maudlin love story, which is followed by an improbable and, for this reader, very distasteful second love story, along with the increased xenophobia of the citizens of a small town and a country fearful of immigrants of color and terrorism. I found this novel to be superficial and its characters to be quite trivial, especially in comparison to Tearne's superb previous novel Brixton Beach.
    • 5/5
      I'm not usually a fan of spy thrillers mostly because I find them too confusing or too frustrating. I had to overcome these feelings at the start of The Swimmer as the many threads of the story are assembled and the story embarks essentially on one long central chase across Europe where three different but connected Swedish youngster get implicated in the murky world of systematic state intelligence. Some of the connections and set pieces are tenuous and implausible, but hey it's a story and meant to entertain. Gradually as the narratives coalesce they become simply the dramatic veneer on the myriad shades of grey swirling at the centre of this novel like the churning winter seas. In the use of cross cutting narratives, the switching between voices, the slipperiness and unknowability of the various characters, the many moments of ellipsis and poetry, the starkly drawn depictions of grey and hostile urban and remote landscapes and the contrasting of these grey spaces with warm and coloured places, there is a more profound meditation on the purpose, consequences and price of our security services. It's disquieting that even when immediate danger withdraws that there is not resolution, only uncertainty and contingency and misplaced attempts to negotiate them.
    • 5/5
      The village of Orford, near Aldeburgh in Suffolk is not used to foreigners. Someone?s killing animals by slitting their throats, and everyone is concerned about terrorists in their midst. Ria, a poet, lives in relative isolation in her late uncle's cottage by the coast in Suffolk ? it?s home. Eric, a neighbouring farmer, is like a surrogate father to her, having taken her eel-fishing since she was a child. Now single, she enjoys being on her own with with few distractions apart from her bothersome brother and his family arriving for an annual trip. Jack is always on at her to sell the house, so he can have his half, but Ria won?t ? they?ve feuded over this for years. Then one day she sees the swimmer?"I was just about to reach out for the switch of my table lamp when I saw him. My swimmer! He was much earlier than before, moving slowly across the surface of the water. I stood open-mouthed and astonished. Then I turned silently and let myself out of the kitchen door, rounding the corner of the house before I stopped. The swimmer had reached the bank and was clambering up it. He had his back to me as once again he began to dry himself with his shirt. I stood waiting. Under the darkening summer sky I could see that he was not a local boy. I watched as he shook his dark curly hair and water sprayed out. He had been swimming in his trousers again and now he reached for the shoes he had thrown down in the long grass. He was putting them on when something made him turn slightly. Then slowly he moved his head and saw me. For a while minute we stared at each other without speaking. Both of us shocked. He was the first to break the silence, surprising me by holding up his hand, one foot in a shoe. He looked ready to run.?Excuse me,? he said, in perfect, though accented, English. ?I?m very sorry. Please. I won?t do it again.? "Ben is an illegal immigrant ? a Tamil from Sri Lanka who came to the area via Moscow. He?s living and working on a nearby farm while his application for asylum is being processed. Ben is a medic who plays jazz piano and despite an eighteen year difference in their ages, they fall for each other and begin tentative steps towards a relationship ? then tragedy happens. I won?t tell you any more of the story, but as the book moves on we meet other women in Ben?s life including his mother Anula, and they take on the tale. With her artist?s eye, Roma has conjured up a compelling vision of the landscape once again. In her previous book, Brixton Beach, the Sri Lankan coast came to life, and the same is so here for the rivers, marshes and pebbly beaches of Suffolk ? she has a great affinity to seascapes. The characters are strongly drawn too, but none more so than Eric ? who is a rock. He understands; he has his own sadness, but uses it to help others, and he provides continuity throughout the book. This is a sad book, yet there is hope too. I enjoyed it immensely, and in my hour of need would wish to have someone like Eric to be there for me. The story highlights the frustrations and distrust experienced by illegal immigrants who have had to flee their own country, definitely something to make one think. I can?t imagine what it must have been like for Ben and other asylum-seekers arriving hidden in a lorry. But he had to escape Jaffna or risk being rounded up and shot in the still ongoing war in his home country. Somehow though, you sense that this dramatic move has set him free to find a new home ? which is another theme weaving through this book.This was an super read and I can highly recommend it.
    • 4/5
      The Swimmer – A Stunning Debut ThrillerThe publisher Head of Zeus has hit the jackpot with their new voices series of books promoting new writers and in particular with The Swimmer. Joakim Zander has written an exceptional thriller that ticks all the boxes that crosses Europe and builds to a crescendo. Zander unlike other Scandinavian writers has not written a noir thriller but one in the traditions of Frederick Forsyth. Klara Walldéen had been orphaned as a baby when her mother was killed in a car bombing and she had been brought up and cared for by her Grandparents on a remote Swedish archipelago. After university in Sweden and London she is now making her name as an assistant in the European Parliament to a leading Swedish left-wing Member of Parliament. Life is good and everything is going well with her boyfriend what on earth could go wrong?Her life turns upside down when she is contacted by an ex-boyfriend who is in Brussels for a conference. He has been contacted by a former colleague about some top secret information on the war on terror. His former colleague is murdered while talking to him and he goes on the run holding the much needed information. He makes contact with Klara who helps him to escape to Paris while he suddenly becomes a wanted man and is being chased hard. While on the run he is murdered also and Klara has to run to survive. She has no idea who wants her dead or what information she is carrying.George Lööw is a Swedish lobbyist based in Brussels on his way up at his firm and a very big contract drops in his lap. They need him to translate some Swedish into English for a shadowy company called Digital Solutions. Little does George know that this big contract is going to take him to places he would rather forget and if he manages to survive he will not be able to tell the tale as nobody would ever believe him?Somewhere within Langley Virginia there is a Swimmer who is watching events unfold in Europe who has an interest in Klara Walldéen. He convinces his boss that he needs to go to Europe and put right something that he has done in his past and make sure that Klara does not become collateral damage in the process.This is one of the best thrillers that I have read in a while, The Swimmer is beautifully written vivid in its imagery and the hope that drives the tension of the thriller. This really is a good verses evil thriller, and something in the present world situation is quite a believable thriller. There is such a fantastic ruthlessness in this thriller that we are told is to protect democracy. For a debut novel this is a fast paced, believable and compelling thriller.The Swimmer has everything the reader wants from a thriller, and it has everything in it to be a best seller.
    • 3/5
      I had a difficult time getting used to the rotating narratives, but once I did, I enjoyed this book. I like spy thrillers, and this is a good one. We meet an unnamed narrator as well as Mahmoud Shammosh, Klara Walldeen, George Loow, and others before the action begins. I was beginning to get tired of all this set-up, but then things began happening with a “bang.”Mahmoud meets a face from his past, who threatens to reveal a damaging secret. While they talk in a quiet park in Stockholm, a sniper kills the man. Mahmoud flees for his life, and the race is on, drawing in all of the other characters.Are parts improbable? Yes. It’s fiction, after all. I thought the pacing was very good, especially toward the end where the suspense was intense. I’ve read some of the other reviews which were less enthusiastic, but I think this is an excellent first effort and I’ll look for more from Joakim Zander.
    • 4/5
      The Swimmer is a spy thriller from a first time Swedish writer. It had good recommendations so I thought I would try it. The genre is something that I read a lot when I was younger(Ludlum, Follett) but got away from home as I got older. Now that I read so much I like to include this along with mystery/crime novels as a diversion from my usual fare. For those that are into this type of book, I recommend this. It is written from the perspective of a Swedish writer so we see his take of American involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq along with the murky and questionable tactics that have been used in the name of the war on terror. It touches on our support for the Taliban when the Russians were there and are use of private contractors. The actually story is the usual spy format. The career spy, his offspring, people put into unusual situations acting more heroic than I would(you must suspend belief with these books) but it was well written, had a good pace, and didn't reveal too much too soon. It was a page turner and I would consider reading something by Zander in the future.
    • 4/5
      I can't get too far in describing this book without getting into spoiler territory, so all I'm going to say is that it's about a 43 year old English woman who lives a fairly isolated life in Suffolk, a young Sri Lankan refugee, the refugee's mother and some racist Brits. There is a great deal of sadness and tragedy in the book, but the ending is somewhat hopeful.This is the fourth Roma Tearne book I've read, and the author's latest. I can see her evolution as a writer. This book is quite different from her others, in most part because it focuses on English characters and England rather than Sri Lankans and Sri Lanka. She did some interesting things in the novel, and as always, uses beautiful poetic language and original imagery.However, I didn't like this one as much as her earlier books. Parts of the story were a little unbelievable, and the grief and anger suffered by some of the characters was overblown (not that it was unjustified, it's just that she belabored the point). Also, the novel was told in three character's points of view, and I found the transition between these characters to be overly abrupt. I can see why she used this technique, but I think it needed work to make it less jarring.
    • 4/5
      As I approach my sunset years, I find I am getting more and more annoyed with authors who portray the U.S. as an evil bully. LeCarre, long past his George Smiley glory days and formerly one of my favorite authors (read the stuff he wrote in the 60s and 70s), has been (pun) a prime example. And now we have Joakim Zander with his debut novel, "The Swimmer". Only he takes his monster CIA one step further; it has evolved into a creature prepared to destroy its own. Time Out ! That's an automatic one star deduct. Maximum possible score 4.0That aside, the book is quite good. The story takes a bit too long to develop, but once all the background is in place, all the characters are introduced and well positioned, things become very interesting. The McGuffin here is information, although that doesn't become quite clear until the second half of the story. The bulk of the timeline occurs over six days preceding Christmas, and the plot unfolds with growing tension in shorter and shorter chapters, told sometimes in third person, other times in first. Most of the story is set in Belgium and Sweden, and how many books have you read with the focus in those two places. This is not an action thriller ala Mission Impossible, but there is enough here to make a big movie. Women play key roles but I don't think you'll see Angelina Jolie running through a snowy forest in a Gore Tex suit when it comes to your Cineplex. The climax is very well done, not protracted, no dynamite, but just the right dash of pragmatism. This will not be a series, but I am looking forward to the next book. Hopefully, by that time Zander will be smart enough to pick a different bad guy.
    • 4/5
      'The Swimmer' is an excellent debut by Joakim Zander. It has a bit of everything: sympathetic characters, terrorists, good guys, bad guys, CIA, exotic (or at least far away) locales, and plenty of action. If you're a fan of spy novels and thrillers, as I am, you'll really enjoy it.

      The writing is competent. Zander lives in Europe and I don't know if this book is translated from another language- it sort of has that feel to it, but the main thing is that the pace and style of the writing are good matches for the action. The characters are decent, although there's not a lot of development done on them. You learn who they are by their actions. The novel is relatively short (by today's standards), and I suppose you give up a bit of character development to keep the action moving.

      The story was a bit difficult to keep straight, since several major characters are involved and there are flashbacks to previous activities. Otherwise, the plot was excellent and the only problem I had was with the ending. It may make a great movie someday, but I'm not sure how realistic the final 100 pages can be. That's the only reason I've docked 'The Swimmer' a star. Everything else is dynamite and I look forward to more from Mr. Zander.
    • 4/5
      An exquisite and heart rending novel. As in her other books, Tearne excels both in creating the most wonderfully human and believable characters and in her descriptions of landscapes. This novel covers grief particularly effectively. She also describes the East Anglian landscapes beautifully which is quite a change from her earlier work which have painted the Sri Lankan natural world so vividly.
    • 3/5
      The Swimmer is a Swedish espionage thriller, a convoluted tale that features a large cast of characters and a lot of vivid scenes of danger and mayhem. The short chapters go back and forth in location and time, and it is a little difficult to keep everything straight. Recommended for those who like books that read like action movie screenplays.
    • 5/5
      Review for the Audible version.I have read two of Roma Tearne's previous novels so I was not expecting this to be a particularly joyful read. Never-the-less, the tragedy referred to in the book's blurb occurs so early on in the narrative that it left me reeling, wondering how it could redeem itself. I did manage a few tears of joy at the end but the majority of the book is truly sad. Having said that, I enjoyed it, but then I am a bit of a morbid reader.The main character is 43 year old Ria who is a bit of a loner following the loss of her much loved father while she was still young. She has inherited his cottage on the Fens of Norfolk, where she is living alone, working as a poet, when she starts to be aware of a presence around her house. She is understandably nervous, given the recent killing of animals and suspicion of illegal immigrants in her area.Ben is a young refugee from Sri Lanka, having escaped the purging of the Tamils by travelling in a lorry via Moscow. He is a qualified doctor in his home country but has had to work in Britain as a farm worker to survive.Ria and Ben form an unlikely alliance, given their different backgrounds and huge difference in age - then the tragedy strikes.There are a number of other vivid characters who are also introduced - Rias's bully of a brother and his family, Ben's mother, but most of all, Eric, an elderly farming man from the Fens who catches eels from the river at the end of Ria's garden and who has known her since she was a child. It is Eric who holds the whole story together, though at times he is a bit too good to be true.Tearne is an excellent author on the themes of expatriation and the struggles of the Tamils in Sri Lanka but there is so much tragedy and death in the story, both past and present, that you'd have to be in a strong frame of mind to read this. It is, however, slightly lifted by the vivid descriptions of the harsh Norfolk countryside.The audible version was well read by Patience Tomlinson. My only complaint would have been that she read the thoughts of Ben's Mother, Anula, with an English accent and then used a slight accent for her spoken word. I would have preferred all of this to have been accented, preferably by a native speaker.
    • 3/5
      This is a timely spy thriller about the use of, and abuse by, private contractors by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq. The story begins in 1980 in Damascus, when the never-named main protagonist, “the swimmer,” escapes a deadly car bomb. We then go to 2013 and meet a character, Mahmoud Shammosh, who is working on a dissertation about “The Privatization of War” (i.e., the use of contractors) and who suddenly finds himself in great danger without knowing the reason for it. Subsequent chapters go back and forth in time as we figure out what is happening and why. This narrative device also enables the author to get in plenty of observations about the nature of torture that took place in these two countries, and the deleterious effects of “blowback” from U.S. involvement.There are a number of other subplots that all are connected, but again, it takes some time before the reader knows just how they are linked. But a recurring theme establishes that given “human nature,” it isn’t difficult to find ways to compromise people in order to get them to do what you want. Or as The Swimmer observes, “a lie may be false, but truth is the real enemy.”Discussion: The author has his characters contemplate many of the moral and political dilemmas that are still debated about U.S. involvement in this part of the world. For example, when The Swimmer is in Afghanistan aiding the Taliban (as the CIA did, with the goal of vitiating the Soviet effort there and thereby helping to destabilize the Soviet government), he wonders:
"And then? When the Russians have left, when the images of Lenin have been burned and only the ruins and the dead remain? Will these timeless men build a country in the name of Allah? Will we allow them to forbid music theater, literature, and even ancient monuments? As they say they want to do? Do we prefer that to the ungodliness of communism? Into whose hands are we placing the fate of this world?”The dénouement is interesting in the sense that it has a bit more nuance than one would expect from all that preceded it.Evaluation: This thriller has a lot of suspense, and plenty of moral dilemmas that are unresolved but left for the reader to contemplate. Is it realistic? Perhaps. Certainly most of it is, according to the nonfiction tour de force by Steve Coll, Ghost Wars. That book, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, is a history of recent events in Afghanistan including the complex interrelationship among diplomats and spies from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States; the assassinations; the cover-ups; and the dirty dealing of all parties. I found Coll’s book more thrilling than this one, but for those who prefer to get their history through fiction, this book is not a bad choice. This Swedish novel has been a best-seller in Europe.
    • 3/5
      This is an excellent example of why I don't usually read spy thrillers. There are several threads, time periods, settings and narratives switching and criss-crossing. The international spy world is filled with double- and triple-crossing agents and administrators, and in the end there is no resolution, just more blackmailing and maneuvering. Great if you like it.
    • 4/5
      Sometimes a bit rough, but good story and very gripping.