Summary: Raised by a hairdresser single mom in a tiny Melbourne flat, Danny is elevated to an elite world by his Olympics-level swimming talent and must consider returning home twenty years later when a family member reaches out for help.
Booklist Reviews
The water was like air to Danny Kelly. Thanks to his swimming ability, the working-class Australian boy earns a scholarship to an expensive school, but the life he was dreaming of is shattered when he performs poorly in his first big championship. His pain at losing is stinging and pervasive, and his struggle to find an identity out of the pool provides the grist for this physical coming-of-age tale. Tsiolkas (The Slap, 2010) perfectly captures the arrogance and agonies of youth, complete with profanity and locker-room mockery, the endless posturing of an all-boys school. So complete is the separation between Danny the swimmer and Dan the adult that Tsiolkas even uses different forms of narration for the two sides of his character as the story bounces back and forth. Stunned and adrift, Dan embarks on a search for meaning, as he slowly tries forgiving himself and his loved ones. His emotions hum mercilessly beneath the surface, and the novel, although slightly bloated, burns with razor-raw insight. His is a ferocious failure, and it translates to engrossing reading—more so, in fact, than most tales of sporting triumph. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.
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