The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

I read The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka to fulfill the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge prompt to read a book about an athlete/sport prompt. 

This book is beautiful. It starts with a story about a pool - people who swim there, what the routines are, and how important it is to the athletes who use it. It's an interesting first-person POV using "we" and "us" as the pronouns, as if the group was writing. For example:

It is an illusion, of course, that the pool is ours and ours alone. We know that there are other users whose attachment to our waters is equally fierce. (page 26). 

There are parts of it where Otsuka just lists things in a way that's reminiscent of The Things They Carried. The lists were detailed and riveting and I just wanted it to go on and on.

In our real lives, on dry land, we are more preoccupied than usual. We misplace our keys. We forget to pay our bills. We can't remember our passwords. We neglect to comb our hair. We are late to the office. We can't concentrate on our work. In the middle of conversation, we sometimes stand up and wander off. I have to check my stocks. Our performance reviews suffer. Our likeability ratings decline. Our friends begin to avoid us. (61-62)

But the pool has to close and then we follow Alice, one of the swimmers, as she is moved to a memory care residence. The end of the book is a moving meditation about end of life, a relationship between a mother and a daughter, memory and sorrow, written in lyrical, beautiful prose. 

It's not a perfect book. There's far too much emphasis on swimming (LOL). But it's definitely a book worth reading and at a slim 176 pages, it won't be a huge time investment to read something so powerful. 4/5 stars

Line of note:

August begins like a slow, shattering dream. Heat rises up from the dusty sidewalks. Lawns bake. Trees droop. The flowers have all lost their smell. A lone Good Humor truck, illegally double-parked near the entrance to the school playground, drones its slow mechanical song. (page 66)

I read this in the beginning of August and it just felt so right. 

Things I looked up:

PSEN4b gene (page 108) - There are genes associated with early onset Alzheimer disease, like PSEN1 and PSEN 2, but this one seems to be fictional. 

Ivalo mutation (page 123) - Also fictional. I was really confused until I read this interview with the author where she admits she just made up a lot of the science. 

Hat mentions:

If you find yourself lying wide awake at three in the morning, staring up at the thing strip of light on the ceiling (What did I do wrong?), you may want to "order in" from our "sleep menu," which offers a broad array of products designed to usher in a state of optimal rest (all items can be billed "a la caret" to your monthly invoice): vibrating eye masks, slow-wave headbands, thermo-sensitive "cool" hats, weighted fleece blankets guaranteed to create a swaddling sensation reminiscent of being in your first and very best bed, the womb. (page 118)