Swimming Lessons: A Novel

From Publishers Weekly This female-bonding story of intensifying trust has a marketable, real-life parallel likely to attract prepublication attention: co-authors Villegas (All We Know of Heaven) and Hugo collaborated by telephone, fax and diskette without ever having met. The result (narrated in distinctive, alternating voices) is surprisingly seamless. When Laurel McArthur was six, she watched, mute with horror, as Ohio River floodwaters swept her brother away. Three decades later, a psychotherapist in Auburn, Ohio, she remains phobic about water and decides to arrange private lessons from swimming teacher Marna Whitney. A transplanted, trailer-park Californian (and disappointed Olympic hopeful), Marna has secret self-doubts of her own. She clings with poignant desperation to her husband, J.W., and takes refuge from her insecurities by doing laps, much the way Laurel does by helping her patients. As their friendship deepens, each woman becomes open not only to the other but also to her own potential worth. What's immediately apparent to the reader is that Marna's husband is Laurel's lover, Jake. Surprisingly, this giant coincidence fails to sink the narrative; its biggest weakness is the need to bring closure to peripheral relationships (between Marna and her mother, Laurel and the family of a patient). Despite this excessive neatness, the main storyAof two people learning to exist in, then enjoy, what each had thought of as an alien elementAis bittersweet and rewarding. Doubleday/Literary Guild featured alternate; author tours. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal To use one of the many trite water metaphors that pervade this workAit sinks. The paint-by-number plot is quickly summarized. Laurel, a psychotherapist, is afraid of water because of a childhood incident. But when her boyfriend suggests a vacation in the Bahamas, she opts for swimming lessons rather than telling him the truth. Laurel's instructor, Marna, is afraid to have children, owing to the circumstances of her own childhood. Looming between them is a secretAbut if the narrative development is intended to surprise readers as well, the authors have failed, for the outcome is predictable by Chapter 2. The only mystery is how these two purportedly close women remain unenlightened for so long. Throughout, the language is sloppy and the underlying psychology overly simple. Expect media attention for the two authors and corresponding demand, but don't expect quality literature.AYvette Weller Olson, City Univ. Lib., SeattleCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.