Book Review: Swimmer in the Secret Sea is difficult for me to capture, and may be the saddest book I've ever read. It makes concrete the crushing nature of broken hopes and thwarted dreams, but paints an unbearable reality. As well-written as it is, I'm unsure why anyone would want to read this. I was reminded of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking (2005). Both that and Swimmer in the Secret Sea are books written in a tight, controlled manner when the reader knows that the author is shrieking inside, writhing with skin on fire. The narrator has two choices: to howl like a maimed animal or to describe every minute drop of the sea of pain in which he's drowning. The pain can be covered for a moment, stilled for a minute, in a carefully detailed description of carpentry, of the simple act of building a box. Perhaps the pain written here is cathartic, encapsulates a life lesson, shows a road taken. Swimmer in the Secret Sea can't be read for pleasure, but maybe it can be read for healing. [4½★]
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