Swimming with Ghosts
From the acclaimed author of Washing the Dead and Bertrand Court comes a satirical and chilling, yet deeply-sensitive, tale that captures the ethos and ruin of children’s competitive swimming, where parents must face the haunting spirits of their own tumultuous upbringings or risk losing their way and—in turn—themselves.
It’s June 2012. The magical and slightly cultish River Run swim club is alive with the spirit of fun competition when a perfect storm brews between team moms and best friends, Gillian Cloud and Kristy Weinstein. The ghost of family addiction has turned up, looming over their carefully planned pasta parties, tie-dye nights, and pep rallies, forcing them to face their unresolved childhood trauma.
Gillian responds by trying to control everyone around her, while Kristy relapses into her dangerous addiction to love. Real sparks fly on the night of the derecho—a freak land hurricane—which sweeps through Northern Virginia, knocking out power for days. The storm ignites a tinder box of secrets, leaving Gillian and Kristy alone in the hot dark—their shame their only company.
At times humorous and devastating, Swimming with Ghosts is a hauntingly dark, yet uniquely tender story of the various entrapments of addiction and lingering trauma, and what it takes to overcome our hidden legacies of disgrace and discover a once unimaginable freedom made possible by confronting life’s greatest storms with the people closest to us.
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Book details
- Author
- Michelle Brafman
- Imprint
- Keylight Books, an imprint of Turner Publishing Company
- Published
- Pages
- 352
- Formats
- Hardcover, Paperback
- Series
- The Swan Dive Series
- Subjects
- Fiction › Women
Fiction › Literary - Topics
- competitive swimming · suburban motherhood · addiction and codependence · childhood trauma · friendship · satire · family secrets · Washington DC
- ISBN-13
- 9781684429547 (Hardcover)9781684429554 (Paperback)
About the author
MICHELLE BRAFMAN is a fiction writing instructor at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Washing the Dead.
Brafman’s short stories and essays have appeared in the Washington Post, Slate, Tablet, Lilith Magazine, Bethesda Magazine, Superstition Review, Potomac Review, minnesota review, Fifth Wednesday Journal and Gargoyle. She holds degrees from the University of California, San Diego and Johns Hopkins University.
When she’s not writing, Brafman contributes regularly to the Lilith Magazine blog and has led its salon discussions at theaters and arts centers throughout the Washington, DC area. Much of her work illuminates seldom told stories of the Jewish experience.
Michelle lives in Glen Echo, Maryland with her husband and two children.