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Product Details
Scribner, January 2012
Hardcover, 288 pages
ISBN-10: 1451625294
ISBN-13: 9781451625295
Description
The Night Swimmer, Matt Bondurant’s utterly riveting modern gothic novel of marriage and belonging, confirms his gift for storytelling that transports and enthralls. In a small town on the southern coast of Ireland, an isolated place only frequented by fishermen and the occasional group of bird-watchers, Fred and Elly Bulkington, newly arrived from Vermont having won a pub in a contest, encounter a wild, strange land shaped by the pounding storms of the North Atlantic, as well as the native resistance to strangers. As Fred revels in the life of a new pubowner, Elly takes the ferry out to a nearby island where anyone not born there is called a “blow-in.” To the disbelief of the locals, Elly devotes herself to open-water swimming, pushing herself to the limit and crossing unseen boundaries that drive her into the heart of the island’s troubles—the mysterious tragedy that shrouds its inhabitants and the dangerous feud between an enigmatic farmer and a powerful clan that has no use for outsiders. The poignant unraveling of a marriage, the fierce beauty of the natural world, the mysterious power of Irish lore, and the gripping story of strangers in a strange land rife with intrigue and violence—The Night Swimmer is a novel of myriad enchantments by a writer of extraordinary talent.
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Browse Inside The Night SwimmerA “powerful book….Cheever by way of Mario Puzo and Jorge Luis Borges.”
-- New York Times Book Review
"Bondurant has given us a group of characters full of life and danger....This is a story that will stay with you."
-- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Bondurant has written another nervy, robust and suspenseful novel.”
-- Austin American-Statesman
“The Night Swimmer is intriguing, seductive, treacherous, and frightening. His writing is so beautiful, poignant, and poetic, that the book is worth a second read.”
-- Lynne Cox, author of Swimming to Antarctica and Grayson
“Before you plunge into The Night Swimmer, be forewarned: there will be ghosts (and goats), and Gaelic spells cast by black waves of invisible power. But mostly you will be dazzled by the sheer force of Matt Bondurant’s storytelling. In prose as rugged as Ireland’s coastline and just as enchanting, Bondurant has offered up a breathtaking story of what happens when dreams come true and hearts are unbridled.”
-- Betsy Carter, author of Swim to Me and The Puzzle King
"Bondurant uses the forbidding landscape of thesouthern Irish coast, blasted by wind and rain and always in the grip ofthe ocean, 'a kingdom of darkness and cold,' to generate remarkable tension,both psychological and somehow atmospheric..." -Booklist
“Lush, brutal, and otherworldly, The Night Swimmer is completely transporting. This darkly beautiful love story
--set in Bondurant's distinctively captivating and merciless coastal Ireland--will pull you under.”
--set in Bondurant's distinctively captivating and merciless coastal Ireland--will pull you under.”
-- Julianna Baggott, author of Girl Talk
"But when Bondurant explores what it is like to push yourself to the brink, whether with physical activity, drugs and alcohol, or lust, he captures an intensity of experience the reader won’t soon forget."
-BookPage
-BookPage
New Jersey Online, January 15, 2012
...vulnerability softens Geiger?s stoic strength. A human being lurks in there somewhere. A child holds the key. The Night Swimmer Matt Bondurant Scribner, 288 pp., $25 The Bulkingtons are an unusual couple. Fred drinks too much and loses ...
Tulsa World, January 15, 2012
...Read full article ...
Austin American Statesman, January 7, 2012
...the most trusted and authoritative voices in book discovery. For more from Kirkus, visit www.kirkusreviews.com. The Night Swimmer Matt Bondurant Scribner, $25 Sinister forces disrupt attempts by American ex-pats to run a pub in rural Ireland ...
Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 7, 2012
...A note in "The Journals of John Cheever" -- sections of which preface each chapter in Matt Bondurant's "The Night Swimmer" -- ponders whether "to give pain some nobility." To handle tragedy, Cheever says, one needs "moral authority"; ...
St. Petersburg Times, January 7, 2012
...Matt Bondurant Bondurant's second novel, The Wettest County in the World, was a New York Times Editor's Pick and one of the San Francisco Chronicle's Best 50 Books ...
Blogcritics.org, January 2, 2012
...thoughts of those who live to swim, so I was quite surprised to find myself immersed in The Night Swimmer by Matt Bondurant. The Night Swimmer tells the tale of a couple very in love, who find themselves in a place that they little imagined. ...
Yahoo! News, December 31, 2011
...International best-selling author Matt Bondurant is joining Southern New Hampshire University's MFA Low-Residency program as full-time faculty this winter. Bondurant’s new novel The Night Swimmer (Scribner) will be published in January, ...
PRWeb, December 31, 2011
...International best-selling author Matt Bondurant is joining International best-selling author Matt Bondurant is joining as full-time faculty this winter. Bondurant’s new novel The Night Swimmer (Scribner) will be published in January, ...
PRWeb, December 31, 2011
...International best-selling author Matt Bondurant is joining Southern New Hampshire University's MFA Low-Residency program this winter. Bondurant’s new novel The Night Swimmer (Scribner) will be published in January, 2012. (PRWeb December ...
Matt Bondurant's Books
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The Wettest County in the WorldBased on the true story of the author’s family, a gripping novel about a notorious gang of brothers who ran liquor in Virginia during...Read More -
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