The Swimmers

Julie Otsuka: Penguin Random house, $30

Otsuka’s third novel is told in two parts. The first tells the story of a community pool and its swimmers, people who have left their “real lives” behind and are now swimming types – “at the pool, we are only one of three things: fast-lane people, medium-lane people or the slow.” This aquatic world is disrupted by a crack, one that leads to the pool’s closing. The second half tells the story of Alice, who is suffering from dementia, another sort of crack, and her daughter. Told almost as a series of lists, Alice’s world is defined by what she can and cannot remember. She remembers the first line of the song How High the Moon but also remembers less and less, and the effect on the reader is hauntingly familiar and profoundly humane.