A spectacular debut novel from a ferociously gifted new writer.

World-class swimming isn't all breathing and technique: for Philomena - reluctantly known to the world as Pip - it is a necessity. Haunted by a litany of childhood tragedy - an agoraphobic mother, a lost father, a drug-addled sister, and a Catholic education dominated by nuns - Pip escapes into the racing lane, where her suffering and rage are transmuted into beauty, grace, and purity of will. Swimming is the story of Pip's rise from the star of her small Midwestern swim team to her first state meets, her brutal professional training, and her eventual gold medals as an Olympic champion. It is a story about competition, obsession, the hunger for victory - and about a
young girl struggling to stay afloat, and to find salvation in the only way she can; a girl who discovers, in the agony and loneliness of adolescence and the family tragedies that threaten to engulf her, the supreme force of her spirit and the spectacular glory of her own body.

Graceful, raw, hilarious, breathtaking in its physical and emotional precision and depth, Swimming is already an international sensation - foreign rights have been sold in twelve countries - and promises to be one of the season's most electrifying debuts.