Swimming

Kate Wilks is a swimmer, a teacher and a writer, but she has never been a mother. She believes she has a good and satisfying life until a chance encounter with her ex-husband and his daughter. Swimming is a lyrical story of one woman’s journey. A novel about loss and survival, friendship and love, creativity and fulfilment, it will resonate with anyone whose life hasn’t turned out as planned.

 

Set in the western suburbs of Melbourne and on the surf beaches south-west Victoria (Australia), Swimming is a novel that negotiates primarily in close-ups, taking the reader into the world of the protagonist, Kate Wilks. This is a poignant, emotional and psychological journey of a woman confronting several unplanned changes in mid life – childlessness, sexual betrayal and the desire for creative fulfilment.

 

Kate is in her early sixties when the novel opens. Kate’s days are divided between swimming, writing, and spending time with her lover George (a biker and journalist, almost fifteen years her junior) and with her friends, especially her best friend, Lynne, who has early onset Alzheimers.