Book Review: Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller

Swimming Lessons Summary

Ingrid Coleman writes letters to her husband, Gil, about the truth of their marriage, but instead of giving them to him, she hides each in the thousands of books he has collected over the years.

When Ingrid has written her final letter, she disappears from a Dorset beach, leaving behind her beautiful but dilapidated house by the sea, her husband, and her two daughters, Flora and Nan.

Twelve years after her disappearance, Gil thinks he sees Ingrid from a bookshop window, but he’s getting older, and this unlikely sighting is chalked up to senility. Flora, who has never believed her mother drowned, returns home to care for her father and to try to finally discover what happened to Ingrid.

But what Flora doesn’t realize is that the answers to her questions are hidden in the books that surround her. Sexy and whip-smart, Swimming Lessons holds the Coleman family up to the light, exposing the mysterious and complicated truths of a passionate and troubled marriage.

Swimming Lessons Review

I was first drawn to Swimming Lessons because the description reveals that one of the protagonists leaves letters in books, an idea I could really get behind.

Who wouldn’t like to find handwritten letters hidden between the pages of their latest read?

I love reading books about books or bookworms so when Penguin sent me a copy of Swimming Lessons to review, I was really excited.

However, in the end, Swimming Lessons wasn’t what I expected at all.

Read on to find out why…

This is the story of Gil Coleman and his family. A college professor who strikes up a relationship with one of his students, who he then marries and starts a family with.

Things are rough for the couple, however, and one day Ingrid mysteriously disappears.

A body is never found.

Neither is a note.

Swimming Lessons is set years and years later, beginning when Gil believes he sees his missing wife Ingrid in town and his daughters come back to the small town where their lives began.

What becomes glaringly obvious pretty early on is that this book isn’t about plot.

It’s not really about character either.

It’s about the relationship between family members: husband and wife, mother and child etc. when it everything breaks down.

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The relationship between Gil Coleman and his younger wife is not plain sailing. They encounter many difficulties on the way, some because of who they are and the actions they take, and others are fate.

They start a small family together, but that doesn’t fix things. Soon everyone is moving in their own direction and the family is held together by only a few threads.

The writing is absolutely beautiful and will make you want to savour every last page of this mystery. There are numerous passages of Swimming Lessons that you’ll want to bookmark for a rainy day and come back to in the future.

There are others that actually made me cry because of just how heartbreaking or sad they were. As I said, this isn’t really about the plot so I can’t even tell you what ‘happened’ to make me shed real tears. However, the pain of the characters is written about in such a way that you really feel it too.

One of the most powerful things about this story, in my opinion, is just how real these characters are. You don’t have to like them to enjoy this novel, in fact, you should probably dislike them.

They are all seriously flawed in their own ways but I liked and appreciated this raw honesty from Claire Fuller.

Families are not perfect and this novel shows that perfectly. There isn’t an absence of love really, but that isn’t all you need for a family to work, a harsh reality many of us will have to face one day.

I will admit, however, that this story was also a little frustrating at times. The mystery remains largely unresolved, which I suppose, was part of the point. The characters don’t know what happened to Ingrid, wife and mother, and neither do we.

The lack of movement meant it took me a long time to get into this book and I will confess that at the beginning I didn’t really ‘get’ it.

Once we were into the second half though, I found myself questioning everything I’d learned so far. I was piecing bits together in my head and frantically flipping back and forth to try and see if things matched up.

There are a few plot twists in the later pages and the ending all happens very speedily so it’s well worth sticking to the end of the novel.

All in all, I would highly recommend Swimming Lessons to you if you’re interested in reading a beautifully written, poignant tale about family and relationships.

There is something very compelling about this story even if the plot doesn’t move very fast. This is a slow burner but it turns into a roaring fire that you’ll want to snuggle up with when the day is done.

Swimming Lessons is available on Amazon here

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The Sea Close By by Albert Camus