The Swimmers

by Marian Womack

Overview

A claustrophobic, literary dystopia set in the hot, luscious landscape of Andalusia from the author of The Golden Key.

"A richly imagined eco-gothic tale." – The Guardian

"Exquisitely realised." – The Times

After the ravages of the Green Winter, Earth is a place of deep jungles and monstrous animals. The last of the human race is divided into surface dwellers and the people who live in the Upper Settlement, a ring perched at the edge of the Earth's atmosphere.

Bearing witness to this divided planet is Pearl, a young techie with a thread of shuvani blood, who lives in the isolated forests of Gobari, navigating her mad mother and the strange blue light in the sky. But Pearl's stepfather promises her to a starborn called Arlo, and the world Pearl thought she knew will never be the same again.

Set in the luscious landscape of Andalusia, this claustrophobic, dystopian reimagining of Wide Sargasso Sea is a fever dream, a blazing vision of self-destruction and transformation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789095920
Publisher:	Titan
Publication date:	02/23/2021
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Marian Womack, author of The Golden Key, was born in Andalusia and educated in the UK. Her debut short story collection, Lost Objects (Luna Press, 2018) was shortlisted for two BSFA awards and one BFS award. She is a graduate of the Clarion Writers' Workshop, and she holds degrees from Oxford and Cambridge universities. She writes at the intersection between weird and gothic fiction, and her stories normally deal with strange landscapes, ghostly encounters, or uncanny transformations. Marian lives in Cambridge, at the edge of the Fens, with her husband, their son and two aging Spanish cats. When she is not writing she can be found working as an academic librarian, or editing books and pamphlets in her indie publishing project, Calque Press.
Marian Womack, author of The Golden Key, was born in Andalusia and educated in the UK. Her debut short story collection, Lost Objects (Luna Press, 2018) was shortlisted for two BSFA awards and one BFS award. She is a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and she holds degrees from Oxford and Cambridge universities. She writes at the intersection between weird and gothic fiction, and her stories normally deal with strange landscapes, ghostly encounters, or uncanny transformations. Marian lives in Cambridge, at the edge of the Fens, with her husband, their son and two aging Spanish cats. When she is not writing she can be found working as an academic librarian, or editing books and pamphlets in her indie publishing project, Calque Press.

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/15/2021

Womack (The Golden Key) draws inspiration from Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea in her meticulously detailed sophomore novel set in a vivid, believable eco-dystopia. Descriptions of this far-future Earth capture the grandeur and danger of nature, infusing the now rampant rainforests and raging oceans with threat, mystery, and hints of the supernatural. The narrator, a young pregnant woman named Pearl, knows all too well about the perils of the natural world. She resides in the wild forests of Gobarí, a place teeming with mutated creatures and ruled by a strict social hierarchy (“First, there were the elegant techies, then their servants, the beanies, and lastly those on the Upper Settlement, the ringers, lording over us all.”) that forces Pearl to hide the secret that she is mixed-caste. When a husband from the Upper Settlement is chosen for her, she’s thrust into an unfamiliar world. As the two navigate their relationship, they slowly uncover secrets of the upper class—including a revelation about the state of Earth’s climate. Womack draws in readers immediately with her dreamy depictions of the landscape and its dangers. At its heart, however, the novel is a probing examination of cultural and class differences. Readers will be captivated. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Swimmers

"A meticulously detailed  novel set in a vivid, believable eco-dystopia... Womack draws in readers immediately with her dreamy depictions of the landscape and its dangers. At its heart, however, the novel is a probing examination of cultural and class differences. Readers will be captivated." – Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“A richly imagined eco-gothic tale.” – The Guardian

"Exquisitely realised.” – The Times, 10 Best SF Books of 2021

For Annihilation fans, the prose is fluid & gorgeously intimate. The questions of our future—a sea of plastic/the intersection of class & climate change—are explored on a tender, personal scale. 
G.V. Anderson

Womack has an eye for both the beauty and the horror of the natural world. Like a strange fever dream, the world of The Swimmers is uncanny and unfamiliar, wonderfully compelling and utterly inescapable. One of my favourite books of the year. Helen Marshall

Jane Eyre meets Annihilation in this ingenious, bewitching novel. The prose is as lush and terrifying as the warped jungle Earth has become. This is speculative fiction at its best: thought-provoking, riveting, and gorgeously told. Jennie Melamed

Womack is an exciting and endlessly inventive writer. I look forward to reading everything she writes. Naomi Booth

Womack is a wonderful writer, and The Swimmers is a marvellous, heartbreaking exploration of the world we are busy creating, and the world we must then inhabit. Aliya Whiteley

Praise for The Golden Key

With hints of the brooding Gothic of Rawblood and Rebecca, this wonderfully creepy historical novel makes it absolutely clear that Marian Womack is a rising star. Tim Major

An intriguing and unsettling tale. . . Womack brings a great sense of the uncanny to the Fens. Alison Littlewood

The Golden Key mesmerizes… A beguiling mystery that lingers long after reading. Katherine Stansfield

A fey, unsettling vision of Norfolk, and London, that fans of The Essex Serpent will love... This book gives up its secrets like a puzzle box. G.V. Anderson

A fascinating, unsettling tale that shifts, mutates and changes meaning much like the eerie ruined house in the fens at the centre of this weird and brilliant debut novel. Lisa Tuttle

Praise for Lost Objects

 Intriguing and illuminating… chockfull of interesting ideas about the natural world and ourselves. Jeff VanderMeer

Marian Womack weaves together the lyricism of Angela Carter, the mad imagination of China Miéville, and the earthiness of Robert Macfarlane. Helen Marshall

Luminous and disturbing as the unearthly things they describe, Marian Womack’s gorgeously written tales map the shifting boundaries between waking life and dream, past and future and our own profoundly unsettled present. Reading them left me with goosebumps, and the craving for more stories by this supremely gifted new writer. Elizabeth Hand

From the Publisher