SWIM by Eric C. Wat, read by Feodor Chin
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing, August 1st 2019
- Genre: Literary Fiction
- Format: Audiobook
- Length: 9 hrs 8 mins (272 pages)
- My Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5)
Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.
This book blew me away. I didn’t know what to expect when I started SWIM. That it was queer and Asian sold it for me, no questions asked. And I got so much more out of it than I could ever have imagined.
At first glance, the story felt somewhat mundane, but I happen to love fiction that shows us people’s everyday lives, no matter how unexciting, so I loved it from the start. Sometimes, I needed to remind myself that this wasn’t a memoir, because Carson Chow (周遠和; 40, gay, Hongkongese American) speaking to me in first-person made it feel like one. His family immigrated to the US from Hong Kong when he was a child, and the nuances of an immigrant family are threaded throughout the storytelling.
“Turning thirty is like being twenty with money; turning forty is like being thirty and not caring what other people think.”
Carson
SWIM is Carson’s journey of making peace with the past and starting a new life after the passing of his mother. The whole story spans ten days or so, following Carson’s daily life as a high-functioning meth addict (but of course his family doesn’t know) and dealing with the aftermath of his mother’s sudden death (at 71). Since his mother was always the one who took care of everyone in the family, Carson steps in to fill in the role and tries to hold everything together now that she is gone. Or else who is going to make sure his po-po (almost 100) takes her meds and does her morning walks?
For now, we sit together, but we grieve, separately.
Carson’s family isn’t perfect: his father once had an affair with his aunt which his mother confided in him twenty years ago; his sister Jolee (~44) is having issues with her marriage, all the while navigating raising her adopted daughter Natalie (9) who finds running water triggering; his po-po who sometimes recognizes everyone but wails for her dead mother at sunset. And there is Carson. Carson who expertly hides his eight-year drug use from his family, who keeps trying to contact his ex-boyfriend Jeremy because he has no other friend, who shows his love of his family by being the “shrimp peeler”—the one who takes care of and cleans after everyone—after his mother’s death.
SWIM is ultimately a story about love, including its disappointment, forgiveness, and letting go. There were multiple flashbacks throughout the storytelling, where a specific trip to Toronto several months prior provided a glimpse of the whole family dynamics. Not everything gets resolved or explained in the end, and I love that, too. There is hope for the future as Carson learns more about his family and his own personal life, and that the passing of his mother is also potentially a new slate for him. And the way the characters interact brings so much life to them all. I also love that the Asian American experience is also crucial to the storytelling: the sense of community while Carson and his family are preparing for the funeral, the food Carson cooks for the family, the bilingual conversations (all written in English) within the family, etc.
I listened to SWIM at the exact right time. The story was conceived after Wat’s grandmother passed away, and everything suddenly hit very close to home when I lost my own grandmother halfway through the book. I will never forget the timing of this. And Feodor Chin’s narration is earnest and soothing and it felt like a friend telling you his life story. I loved every minute of it.
content warnings: death of parent, drug abuse (crystal meth), graphic masturbation, dui (drug), use of the word “handicapped” (for parking space), family member with dementia, death of family member with cancer, past cheating, consumption of other people’s prescription medicine, smoking (pot), public intoxication, depression, severe constipation, violence, schizophrenia, stealing
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