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! ( )

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. ( )

I The Swimmer får vi lära känna tre kvinnor - Ria, Anula, samt Lydia.
Ria bor i ett hus i Suffolk, England. En kväll märker hon att någon simmar i floden som flyter precis utanför hennes trädgård. Simmaren visar sig var en ung läkare som flytt från inbördeskrigets Sri Lanka och nu väntar på uppehållstillstånd i England. Ben och Ria inleder ett passionerat förhållande som vänder upp och ner på Rias liv. ( )

40-something poet Ria retreated to her old family home in Suffolk some years ago, after a failed relationship. Her monotonous existence is broken when on a series of warm summer nights she sees a young man cross her garden to swim in the river at the bottom of it. He turns out to be a Sri Lankan asylum seeker recently arrived in Britain, and a beautiful friendship develops between these two lonely people.

As I read the first of the three sections, narrated by Ria, I had the nagging feeling tht I'd been there before, that I'd already read a story about an older writer who falls in love with a much younger person who brings them back to life, in a sense; I eventually realised that the book I was thinking of was none other than Tearne's very own Mosquito. For a while after that I felt a bit cheated that I was getting the same story again, but actually that's not fair; they are 2 different explorations of a theme.

I couldn't help wondering as I read if Tearne doesn't sometimes lay it on a bit thick in her descriptions - the idyllic Suffolk summer is perhaps a touch TOO idyllic, the perfection of Ria's rose-scented garden on a summer evening is just too perfect. Somehow she manages to keep it just on the right side of credible, but I had the sneaky feeling that I was being manipulated so I wasn't feeling terribly charitable towards the book for large parts of it. I never wanted to stop reading, but if I read on it was with an increasing sense of detachment and with one sceptical eyebrow constantly raised.

I was completely unprepared, then, for the effect the last of the three parts had on me. It came out of nowhere and floored me; I sat on a plane yesterday morning with tears rolling down my face. It's been a long time since any book moved me quite to that extent.

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. But overall, as with her other books, I very much enjoyed it. ( )