Grade: C+

A preface — this isn’t a romance. It’s more women’s fiction or even, dare I say it, literature. Unfortunately, in the way of lit-ruh-chur, it leaves me feeling glum and wanting to eat a chocolate bar to get my seratonin levels back into the “I really, truly don’t need a Xanax prescription” zone.

Nightswimming is well written. It truly is. The prose is clean and elegant. In places, it’s even evocative. However, this is so not my thing. The plot is fine (even though it makes me want to stick both my thumbs in my eyes to see if that hurts less than reading this story). It’s written in high literary style, where you begin at the end of the story, and then construct what has come before via POV vignettes. This is accomplished with expertise and artistry.

As a Lit major, I’ve encountered enough literature to recognize it when I read it. I just never liked it. You see, literature is so often depressing. Crappy things happen to people and lessons are learned. When I’m reading, I don’t necessarily want a moral or a life lesson or to be enriched. I want to be entertained. Nightswimming is eminently readable, but far from festive.

Now for a bit about the plot — Sarah and Brett have been dating for a while, and she comes up pregnant. They got plastered one night and were none too careful with their protection. Brett doesn’t want a child; Sarah does. The subsequent story is how impending parenthood stresses their relationship. I suppose the way everything unfolds is quite realistic, but it’s also depressing. They move out to the country, where their model-gorgeous neighbor, Claudia, immediately takes a shine to Brett. You can imagine where this is heading.

In Nightswimming, the author appears to ask the reader whether parents have a moral obligation to stay together, regardless of their personal desires, to provide for the child. Her position seems to be yes, they do, and it’s selfish to put your own happiness ahead of two miserable partners cohabitating for the dubious benefit of the child. On that subject, I’m just going to say — it was an obtrusive moral judgment and didn’t enhance the story.

Brett was a wanker. He truly was. Throughout the course of the book, he was such a prick that I hoped Sarah would take the baby and split for good. In the way of literature, nothing is really resolved by the end. You aren’t sure what will happen, after all the angst. Sarah, on the other hand, is the perfect picture of a stay at home mom: quiet, content and serene, except when she’s going bugnuts because Brett doesn’t love her as she needs, doesn’t cotton to fatherhood, and isn’t the man she wants him to be.

I don’t understand why she’s so hurt and surprised, though. Early on when they first began dating, he told her that he doesn’t believe in monogamy, but now she’s heartbroken because he doesn’t want to be a family man? He’s trying to make the best of things, and he acts like an utter dipshit because he thinks she’s fat and lazy because she sits around in her jammies all day whilst caring for an infant, and the house is still a wreck when he gets home from work. They fight about chores and shopping and they almost seem to loathe each other at times. But really, Sarah is the bigger dipshit in the picture because she wants to change him.

At its best, Nightswimming offers a story full of real pathos and dysfunctional tenderness. I think its real strength lies in showing how people don’t always love the person who would be best for them, and wind up trapped by circumstances with someone who really wasn’t the person they should be with. I’m not sure if that’s the message — we have to make the best of the lives we have? In this book, there are some rather sad subplots about stillborn relationships and ruined potential. I quite liked David, and felt altogether bad for him because Sarah was such a clueless, spineless masochist. I thought Brett deserved to wind up with that crazy twat, Claudia, and I don’t know how I feel about the end of the book. Mostly, I want more closure.

I highly suspect people who enjoy this sort of book will like this more than I did, maybe even love it. The writing is top-notch, and I like the author’s voice, but this story was not for me. I would read something else by Rebecca James, however. Hopefully, her next book will not be about babies or so glum in outlook.

You may buy this book here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 6:00 am and is filed under Books, Grade: C, Romance: Contempo, Reviews by Annie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.