Review: The Swimmer by Roma Tearne

Title: The Swimmer
Author: Roma Tearne
Publisher: HarperPress, 2010
Rating: 4 stars

It’s been a little while since I’ve written a review of any books, so to get me started, here is a synopsis of the novel, taken from Goodreads.com:

A gripping, captivating novel about love, loss and what home really means.  

Ben is a young illegal immigrant from Sri Lanka who has arrived in Norfolk via Moscow. Awaiting a decision from the Home Office on his asylum application, he is discovered by Ria as he takes a daily swim in the river close to her house. He is twenty years her junior and theirs is an unconventional but deeply moving romance, defying both boundaries and cultures – and the xenophobic residents of Orford. That is, until tragedy occurs.

Forty-three year old Ria is used to being alone. As a child, her life changed forever with the death of her beloved father and since then, she has struggled to find love. That is, until she discovers the swimmer.

The Swimmer is an incredibly moving story told through three different voices, each section of the novel still centring around (as the title suggests) the swimmer – Ben. A Sri Lankan doctor seeking asylum, Ben finds himself stranded in rural Suffolk when his money runs out and he is unable to reach London. He begins working illegally whilst waiting to hear back from the Home Office, and meets Ria as he struggles to survive, stealing food from her kitchen and swimming in the river close to her house to keep clean. It is an unlikely friendship between them which soon blossoms into romance, and still they await the decision from an impotent Home Office with regards to Ben’s asylum application.

This beautiful relationship is painted against a backdrop of barely-concealed racism in the Suffolk village of Orford. While the whispers of terrorism and news reports of ritually slaughtered animals fail to make an impression on Ria, we see the village closing in on itself, leaving Ben stranded on the outside. And then the sounds of gunshots ring out and their tragic repercussions echo through the rest of the novel.

Through the voices of a lover, a mother, and a daughter, the novel personalises the asylum process and the tragedy of loss and dislocation that is at the heart of this book. The three distinct voices of three very different women work to bring together the political and the personal, encouraging us to understand the predicament faced by so many refugees in this day and age. Writing at a time when immigration is a key issue in British politics, this novel sensitively gives us a glimpse at ‘the other side’ of the debate. For Ben and his mother Anula, Britain is a source of hope in their war-torn home country, a chance for a better, safer life. What we are shown in this novel is just how easy it is to put your hope in the wrong thing.

The Swimmer moved me to tears more than once – something I always consider to be the mark of a good book. Tearne’s writing is beautiful in the precision with which she depicts her characters and their world. The tensions between the characters are beautifully managed and conveyed; for me, it is Anula's section of the novel, filled with her undirected rage and her unarticulated hatred of Ria, which is most striking. This beautiful, heartfelt novel is Tearne's fourth, but my first look at her writing. I'll definitely be taking a look at some of her earlier works - this is a wonderful, touching work of fiction that I enjoyed immensely. Highly recommended.

Book-haul

My name is Emily Smith, and I'm a bookaholic.

There, I said it.

After the Orange Prize for Fiction longlist was announced yesterday, I spent a lot of the afternoon thinking about books. I'll be honest - I didn't have much else to do. So it got to mid-afternoon and I started getting a bit twitchy and restless, so I decided to go into town. Except "town" for me (90% of the time) means "bookshop". And so I made my way down to the local bookshop, braving a bus full of small children which were having some sort of screaming contest, and picked up a nice selection to add to my TO READ pile.

From top to bottom:
The Swimmer - Roma Tearne
Grace Williams Says it Loud - Emma Henderson
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
The Long Song - Andrea Levy.




*Note: I only bought the top 3 yesterday. They were on a 3 for 2 deal, so I got The Book Thief as well because I've heard a fair bit about it recently. I got The Long Song a couple of weeks ago in my last book-haul. I bought Room at the same time, and then a couple of days later bought all of The Hunger Games trilogy. That was a good week.

**Note: This is only the most recent additions to my TO READ pile. Lots of them are at home, rather than with me at university, which makes me sad. Other than these, I think I've only got two other books on my bookshelves here that I haven't read yet, which makes me feel slightly nervous.

I started reading The Swimmer last night. I'm about 80 pages in now, and am enjoying it so far. My initial impressions were that it's got a great cover, and that it could do with a slightly larger font size. I won't go into my thoughts on the novel itself just yet; that's something for another day. I'm off to do a bit more reading now, before some pre-birthday celebrations with my housemates, hooray!