Everything you need to understand or teach The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka.
In Julie Otsuka's novel The Swimmers, a group of swimmers grows attached to the pool located beneath their city's streets. The underground pool allows them to escape the troubles and woes of their lives above ground. For Alice in particular, the pool offers a place of clarity, peace, and order. Because she is suffering from dementia, Alice grows attached to the pool, viewing the water as a metaphoric gateway to her past life. However, when the pool is permanently closed because of structural integrity issues, Alice's mental state comes under threat. Without her underground retreat, Alice's sense of reality and truth falters and her autonomy dissipates. Embracing a range of narrative vantages, linguistic stylings, and formal manipulations, the novel explores themes including order and control, identity, escape, and longing.
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