The Swimmers

In the course of the book’s narrative, some of the losses that occur are overtly apparent. For example, Part 3 is devoted to the concept of Alice losing memories. Others are more subtle; the swimmers don’t just lose the place where they exercise, they lose the group that gives them a sense of belonging and the communal identity they share. The amount of loss the characters face seems astounding, but it is not atypical. The Swimmers demonstrates that loss is an integral part of life, and the ways people find to cope with loss, whether positive or maladaptive, make them who they are.

When the crack leads to the pool’s closure, the swimmers lose the routines that bring them joy and comfort. They lose the sense of order they find at the pool when the world aboveground feels too chaotic. They lose the camaraderie they have with their fellow swimmers and the sense of belonging they get from being part of that community. On the broadest level, they lose a source of structure that anchors their sense of self. Likewise, after the onset of dementia, Alice loses the memories that make her life meaningful. Dementia changes her personality as well. Between memory and personality, dementia steals two of the things that most define who she is, resulting in her losing her sense of self. When she is no longer able to care for her basic needs, she loses her autonomy. Once she goes to Belavista, Alice also faces the loss of her freedom and dignity. Alice’s struggle with dementia causes her daughter to recognize the loss of the close relationship they once had. The daughter’s actions caused this as she prioritized other aspects of her life, like her career and marriage. Ironically, she loses her marriage, too. In Alice’s absence, her husband loses a part of himself. Like the songbirds he references, he and Alice aren’t whole without each other. While these losses are heavy for the family, divorce, aging, and death are all common experiences that unite humanity, creating opportunities for connection and camaraderie.

The swimmers’ go to the pool religiously as a coping mechanism for whatever hardships they encounter in life. It defines and unites them. It builds their resilience in an existence filled with loss. The universality of their troubles is symbolized by the swimmers’ unified voice and blended narrative role; in being no one in particular, they are everyone. The true test of their resilience is how they cope with the loss of their coping mechanism. In the wake of the mysterious crack’s appearance, they cope by obsessively seeking answers. When countless experts can’t provide them, some resort to humor, like one swimmer who theorizes that the crack is “[f]eeble cousin to the painted black line” (44). Some lose faith in humanity: “Nobody up there cares” (70). Others look for the silver lining, like positive thinker Glenn in lane seven, who says, “Maybe it’ll be good for us, teach us a lesson” (50). They engage in denial: “And several of us—stubborn refuseniks through and through—think, simply, No. This can’t be happening to us” (70). They make bargains, agreeing to swim more laps or drink less alcohol if the pool can just stay open. In the end, the pool does close, and they are forced into acceptance, offering a clever allusion to the importance of closure in the grieving process.

Alice and her family engage in similar coping mechanisms. Alice experiences denial that her stay at Belavista is permanent, thinking her husband or daughter will come to get her any day. Her husband is also in denial about her not coming home, leaving her Post-It notes where they are, just in case. Alice’s daughter copes by seeking to atone for the distance she created between her and Alice. She also seeks answers and closure, sending Alice’s brain to be analyzed as a way to understand what happened to her mother. The inclusion of her brain scan in a medical conference connects Alice’s fate with current and future dementia patients, possibly leading to new treatments and cures. For her husband, Alice’s death serves as closure and helps him achieve acceptance. He finally takes down the Post-Its and gets a new bed. Alice’s daughter moves toward acceptance as she remembers certain moments in which Alice seemed to forgive her.

In all of these coping mechanisms, the stages of grief can be seen. This suggests that humans’ natural response to loss is to find ways to cope. The process of grieving itself is finding a way to accept loss so that life can go on. If the human condition is defined by loss, as the stories in this narrative suggest, then everything about the way a person lives is a form of coping. Here, Otsuka treats the individual and collective ways humans process loss as something to be honored and celebrated.