The Swimmer

The Swimmer is John Cheever’s best known story, and probably as anthologized as Fitzgerald’s The Diamond as Big as the Ritz or Updike’s A & P.

Ned Merrill is at a party and suddenly envisions himself as a great man about to embark on a swim across the county by way of backyard pools in a tony suburban New York State community. He thinks of all of the family pools he’d have to navigate, and without any announcement, he, perhaps already a gin and tonic or two into his day, sets off.

Along the way he is noticing time has not passed quite as he perceived. Some yellow leaves are blowing off trees in what he takes to be midsummer. A storm comes and passes and he experiences an unusual chill. He passes through some homes where the pool is completely dry and he notes a for-sale sign nailed to an oak tree.

One couple who Ned thinks are communists, or at least enjoy the rumor of it, are on their large property enjoying their pool without clothing. Ned likewise removes his swimsuit, dives in, and swims the length of their pool. They express sadness about Ned’s situation and ‘the girls’. Nothing registers for Ned. He says they’re at the party doing well.

At one point, Ned is forced to cross a busy road and has to stand in the refuse at the side of the road and wait some time before he can cross. Then someone drives past, jeers at him and tosses an empty beer can at his feet.

We begin feeling something precarious for Ned. He isn’t seeing it, so our imagination clicks in. Are his girls okay? Was his drinking getting out of hand? Had his wife left him and taken the girls? Had he lost his job because of his drinking, or had he started drinking after losing his job? Alcohol seems to be somewhere in the equation.

After crossing the highway, all that remains is the public pool (not as nice as private pools), his mistress’s house, and maybe another before arriving home, where a foreboding arrival answers few questions, but clearly denotes the journey of a man beginning the day as a superman to the bedraggled and void ending of another American dream dashed.