Joe’s Reviews > The Night Swimmer > Status Update
Joe
is on page 23 of 288
To stay out of Fred and Albert's way, I spent whole days at the old Baltimore Beacon, which stands on a promontory a half mile outside of town, a whitewashed brick thimble on a cliff two hundred feet above the water. In the old days fishermen called the beacon Lot's Wife. It seemed absurd, a candle in the wild dark., but apparently it kept ships from smashing into the rocks for a couple hundred years,
— May 01, 2023 06:31PM
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Joe
is on page 134 of 288
On our next trip to Cork I picked up some nautical histories of the waters off southwestern Ireland. Essentially the stretch of North Atlantic surrounding Fastnet Lighthouse was arguably one of the most dangerous seas in the world, a whirling maw of currents and weather that sank thousand-ton tankers, destroyed frigates and yachts, that drove seasoned skippers into rocks or a thousand miles off course.
— May 07, 2023 08:13PM
Joe
is on page 102 of 288
It would take a lot longer for me to become hypothermic than most people, but that didn't mean it couldn't happen. There is a reason why far more people have reached the summit of Everest than have swum the English Channel. A dying mind is a strong magician, especially in the water. When I swam I paid attention.
— May 03, 2023 07:25PM
Joe
is on page 96 of 288
Most competitive swimmers develop a hunched back, the source of power for their stroke, a concave chest, as except for the butterfly the pectorals aren't required, bulbous shoulders, thinning arms and delicate wrists, no ass to speak of, and stick legs that taper away to nothing. I inherited my grandmother's generous chest and ass, no help to me as a swimmer but they helped balance my oversize proportions.
— May 03, 2023 07:13PM
Joe
is on page 94 of 288
What I learned in those two years in graduate school was that the world is full of many, many good books. most of which sit on the shelves undisturbed for their entire existence, and yet to become part of this vast silent council required a tendency of mind that I simply did not possess. This was not devastating news to me. It was actually quite a relief.
— May 03, 2023 07:04PM
Joe
is on page 75 of 288
They seemed to me to be a part of that disappearing middle class of English gentlemen, men who carried themselves like something from an E.M. Forster novel, the upright, cheerful, and staid Britishness, always quick to stammer an apology, men who unabashedly wore houndstooth coats over rag wool sweaters, walking sticks and notebooks bound with twine clutched in their armpits.
— May 03, 2023 06:34PM
Joe
is on page 43 of 288
My favorite John Cheever stories are invariably in the first person. But the first person also often has a tendency to melodrama, the feeling the narrator is clutching you about the collar and begging for attention. I don't know how Cheever was always able to execute that marriage of tone and emotion. I wish that I did.
— May 03, 2023 05:52PM
Joe
is on page 19 of 288
The truth is that from the moment Fred was announced as a finalist I had been mostly thinking about the North Atlantic Ocean. The steep green swells, foaming wave faces, the briny smell, the shock of the cold, the massive depth. The idea of it seized my heart in a cold fist, my skin vibrating with anticipation.
— May 01, 2023 06:14PM
Joe
is on page 11 of 288
The mornings on Lake Champlain were often windy and brisk, so I took to swimming in the evenings after work. The beach officially closed at dusk, but people still hung about or paddled in the shallows, mothers with small children filling tiny plastic buckets. I was constantly amazed at the willingness of New Englanders to fling themselves into a body of water in often miserable circumstances.
— May 01, 2023 05:56PM
Joe
is on page 3 of 288
It began with a dart, a pint, and a poem, three elements that seemed to demonstrate the imprecise nature of fate. When Fred stepped up to the line, the dart held loosely in his hand, you could see in the way he carried his body the assurances of a man who was well prepared. Fred was always lucky, but to say that now seems to remove something essential from him.
— May 01, 2023 05:44PM
