{"id":48873,"date":"2021-12-20T11:12:03","date_gmt":"2021-12-20T16:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=48873"},"modified":"2021-12-15T15:44:16","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T20:44:16","slug":"the-swimmers-by-julie-otsuka-in-booklist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-swimmers-by-julie-otsuka-in-booklist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka [in Booklist]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-48876\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2021\/12\/Swimmers-Julie-Otsuka-BookDragon-546x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"546\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2021\/12\/Swimmers-Julie-Otsuka-BookDragon-546x800.jpg 546w, https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2021\/12\/Swimmers-Julie-Otsuka-BookDragon.jpg 623w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 546px) 100vw, 546px\" \/><strong>*STARRED REVIEW<\/strong><br \/>\nAward-winning, bestselling Julie Otsuka is averaging one book per decade, making each exquisite title exponentially more precious. Here she creates a<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>stupendous collage of small moments that results in\u00a0an extraordinary examination of the fragility of quotidian human relationships.<\/p>\n<p>Initially set in an underground pool, it voices a collective \u201cwe\u201d that reports the comings and goings of the titular swimmers, regulars who uphold all regulations, who have established their schedules, lanes, and paces with comforting familiarity. A crack in the pool\u2019s bottom gets noticed, examined, almost forgotten until it causes immutable upheaval.\u00a0Some never swim again \u2013 most notably Alice, for whom the water was an essential haven: \u201cUp there &#8230; I\u2019m just another little old lady. But down here, at the pool, I\u2019m myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alice, \u201ca retired lab technician now in the early stages of dementia,\u201d is the first of Otsuka\u2019s few characters identified by name. Her story aboveground is a polyphonic reveal through her lingering yet fading<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>memories, the care center that she can never leave (its name, Belavista, seemingly missing a letter as if suggesting her residency is a mistake), and her estranged daughter, who based her second novel \u201con the most painful and difficult years of [Alice\u2019s] life.\u201d Alice survived that \u201cfirst frenzy of forgetting\u201d as an imprisoned Japanese American during WWII, and now a final erasure looms.<\/p>\n<p>Once more, Otsuka creates an\u00a0elegiac, devastating masterpiece.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: modified from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.booklistonline.com\/The-Swimmers-\/pid=9755529\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">&#8220;Fiction,&#8221; <em>Booklist<\/em>, December 15, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>*STARRED REVIEW Award-winning, bestselling Julie Otsuka is averaging one book per decade, making each exquisite title exponentially more precious. Here she creates a\u00a0stupendous collage of small moments that results in\u00a0an extraordinary examination of the fragility of quotidian human relationships. Initially set in an underground pool,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,426,6535],"tags":[6608,6668,22,10,24,51,720,2343,13,129,39,29,10066],"class_list":["post-48873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-fiction","category-japanese-american","category-repost","tag-bookdragon","tag-booklist","tag-civil-rights","tag-family","tag-historical","tag-identity","tag-japanese-american-imprisonment-during-wwii","tag-julie-otsuka","tag-love","tag-mother-daughter-relationship","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-race-racism","tag-swimmers"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka [in Booklist] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-swimmers-by-julie-otsuka-in-booklist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka [in Booklist] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"*STARRED REVIEW Award-winning, bestselling Julie Otsuka is averaging one book per decade, making each exquisite title exponentially more precious. 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