BUY
Use "UMASS20" at checkout for 20% off!
“This new collection is a lightning storm, revelatory and galvanic~~I love The Long Swim, and Svoboda's crackling, hilarious, gorgeous prose-music.”
“Terese Svoboda is a master of the dire and the blackly comic and a virtuoso of economy and voice, and The Long Swim features the jaunty and the wounded who in extremis maintain their wit and lacerating self-awareness.”
“These stories, so precise and joyful in language and movement, don’t hesitate to dive meaningfully into heaviness and honesty. What musical and beautifully-written pieces to read aloud and savor.”
Cynical, irreverent, and formally daring, Terese Svoboda’s stories in The Long Swim are a deft exploration of womanhood and humanity that evoke the wit of Lydia Davis, the dark humor of A. M. Homes, and the sharp observation of Dana Spiotta.
A junket to Cuba and an ambassador’s dalliance with a niece hide dark secrets and political revolution. "I've always had a knife," says the unstable stepson to his parents. A runaway circus lion haunts a small town where two lovers risk more than their respective marriages. Inventive, dark, and absurd, the stories in The Long Swim capture Svoboda’s clear-eyed, wry angle on the world: a place of violence and uncertainty, but also wild beauty, adventure, and love both lasting and ephemeral.
Globe-trotting, barbed, nuanced, and deeply human, The Long Swim will speak to fans of Lauren Groff, Helen DeWitt, George Saunders, and Amy Hempel.
