Product Description

She swims into the medals and then into oblivion -- a sensuous, searing, compact debut from an outstanding new British writer. This is a striking, supple and direct debut from a new English writer that both promises an exceptionally exciting future and provides an unusual, accomplished and saleable debut. It's a character piece, charting the life of a girl who becomes besotted with butterflies and swimming on the same holiday when an infant, then grows up to become a world-class swimmer before, at 19, obsolescence overtakes her with disorienting haste! If taken on its own terms -- as an intense and focused portrait -- it is simply staggering; a miniature, but a perfect one. It is stuffed with gorgeously apt and fresh imagery and has tremendous verve about it. It reads, in fact, like a race, as it should.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #358099 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Swimmer is Bill Broady's lyrical literary debut: the story of a young female swimmer, a Commonwealth gold medallist, who escapes the peculiar loneliness of family and school life by finding her element in the water. It's a strange and melancholy tale: "Your first and last memories were of butterflies ... Before Dad's identification you'd named it already, in the fast-receding synaesthetic language of babyhood, MRRLYMBRXBRX". "You" is the unnamed swimmer; the novel is Broady's address to a girl who, at the very beginning of the book, has had her first and last memories: the butterflies who enthuse a child with a wish to fly that becomes the wish and talent to swim. In the first half of the book, the cast of characters is ready and waiting: Mum, Dad, Coach, budding champion and her competitive rivals. But nothing is quite as expected: "Stupidity! Stolidity! Senselessness!" is Dad's parody of Coach's "Strength! Stamina! Suppleness!", while Mum swigs gin in the bathroom. And Coach's commitment has its own price, one that is followed through in the disturbing sequel to the swimmer's success. At 19, her athletic career all but over, the swimmer is passed on to Coach Two, an agent who helps her to find, or lose, her way in the world of "promo": the money, sleaze and sex of the night clubs and glamour modelling that emerge as the pinnacle of Coach Two's ambitions.

It's a maddening world, literally, for the swimmer--and for the reader who follows her journey back to the "time before speech" and the early pleasures of butterflies. --Vicky Lebeau

Amazon.co.uk Review
Swimmer is Bill Broady's lyrical literary debut: the story of a young female swimmer, a Commonwealth gold medallist, who escapes the peculiar loneliness of family and school life by finding her element in the water. It's a strange and melancholy tale: "Your first and last memories were of butterflies ... Before Dad's identification you'd named it already, in the fast-receding synaesthetic language of babyhood, MRRLYMBRXBRX". "You" is the unnamed swimmer; the novel is Broady's address to a girl who, at the very beginning of the book, has had her first and last memories: the butterflies who enthuse a child with a wish to fly that becomes the wish and talent to swim. In the first half of the book, the cast of characters is ready and waiting: Mum, Dad, Coach, budding champion and her competitive rivals. But nothing is quite as expected: "Stupidity! Stolidity! Senselessness!" is Dad's parody of Coach's "Strength! Stamina! Suppleness!", while Mum swigs gin in the bathroom. And Coach's commitment has its own price, one that is followed through in the disturbing sequel to the swimmer's success. At 19, her athletic career all but over, the swimmer is passed on to Coach Two, an agent who helps her to find, or lose, her way in the world of "promo": the money, sleaze and sex of the night clubs and glamour modelling that emerge as the pinnacle of Coach Two's ambitions.

It's a maddening world, literally, for the swimmer--and for the reader who follows her journey back to the "time before speech" and the early pleasures of butterflies. --Vicky Lebeau

About the Author
bill broady lives and works in Yorkshire. This astonishing debut is the fruit of Littlewoods' largesse. He has also written and published some poetry and short stories in, amongst others, The London Magazine, Poetry Now, Sofa, Printer's Devil, The Big Issue, Artscene and The Dalesman.

Customer Reviews

Swimmer is a Winner
This is a truly unique book which I feel should grace everyones bookshelf. On the surface, it is the story of a young girl who is training to become an international swimmer. But this book is about so much more. Quite honestly, the actual storyline could be irrelevent. What stands out about this book, is the the literary style, the prose. Beautiful, fluid, lyrical, lulling, almost magical and so delicate. Conversation is sparse, but this book does not need it, since this book speaks for itself.

I cannot wait to read more from Bill Broady - I think he is one of the most original, exciting and refreshing new writers around.

Swimmer
Beautifully literate is how I'd summarise this book. Written in very fluid prose, it tells the story of a young girl with a affinity with the water who takes up swimming... The narrative, as I previously mentioned, is very beautiful and particularly apt in context; it is very liquid. If you like truly beautiful and modern literature, however, don't have a great deal of time to read, this book is one for you. Short, interesting and very delicately written.

Glide to the bottom
This is an intense, well paced novel that completely drew me in -I had to finish it in one sitting. I like the way this was written, quite unusually from the second person's point of view with a narrative that keeps going in one long, beautiful, excrutiating glide to the bottom. Warmly recomended!