Swimming at Home

Cycling Home is a book by British author Deborah Levy, published on 10 September 2012. The quick novel handles the experiences of poet Joe Jacobs, whenever their family trip is interrupted by a fanatical audience.

Vital reception for novel had been generally favorable. On July 25 of 2012 the book was longlisted when it comes to guy Booker reward, as well as on September 11 of this exact same 12 months it absolutely was shortlisted. It had been shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate reward (2013).

In the summertime of 1994, the poet Joe Jacobs (Polish émigré Jozef Nowogrodzki) holidays in a summer home within the south of France together with his spouse Isabel, his daughter Nina, and their friends, the couple Mitchell and Laura. The tranquillity is destroyed when Joe's fan Kitty Finch turns up. Her desire for, and intimate destination to Joe are unmistakeable, but Isabel encourages the lady to remain anyhow. Isabel is a foreign correspondent whoever work has continuously taken the girl from her household, and that has grown to tolerate Joe's continual infidelities.

At the same time, Kitty's emotional problems be plus obvious, however Nina could be the only one which dares to deal with the issue. To the end this indicates clear that Kitty is poised to kill by herself. In the end, but is in fact Joe which kills himself. As it works out, Kitty's emotional issues were just a reflection of his even more deep-founded despair. The story concludes with a current-day confessional through the today adult Nina to the woman belated father.

Vital reception[edit]

Crucial reception of Swimming Home ended up being generally speaking positive. 's John Self found the main figures for the book "perfectly offered", and also noted so it "has repeated passages which slowly mesmerise your reader."Philip Womack of claimed that "[a]nyone who's been on a villa getaway will recognise the tensions that permeate Levy's stealthily devastating book." He lauded the "hallucinatory quality" of guide, concluding that "[e]verything features value...This is a sensible, pulsating literary creature."Julia Pascal, reviewing the book for, describes the author's storytelling as "allusive, elliptical and distressful." Specifically she appreciates exactly how Levy "upends expectation", turning the book into "a haunting exploration of loss and longing."