Carol Ullmann is a freelance writer and editor. In the following essay, Ullmann examines the complexity of relationships in Swan's short story “The Deep.”

Mary Swan's “The Deep” is a novella rich with characters. The twins Ruth and Esther are at the axis of the interconnections between characters—each has relevance to the narrative because of his or her relationship to the twins. This story tells the life and death of the twins through the people they have known. Half of the story is told through their own eyes and from their memories and half is from the perspective and memory of people the twins have known. The twins have affected them all.

Ruth and Esther's family relationships are at once sad, strange, and yet familiar in the sense that no one's family is perfect. All families suffer unhappy times, anger, grief, distance, dysfuntionality, discord, regret, aggression...