John Cheever’s “The Swimmer”

The acclaimed 1964 story about a man who floats, freestyles, and skinny-dips his way across his suburb’s pools. View in browser | Update your preferences Fiction “The Swimmer” Making his way home by an uncommon route gave him the feeling that he was a pilgrim, an explorer, a man with a destiny. By John Cheever There’s no better occasion than a midsummer Sunday to revisit a classic story that begins, “It was one of those midsummer Sundays.” In “The Swimmer,” John Cheever’s celebrated New Yorker story from 1964, a middle-aged father named Neddy Merrill decides to leave a suburban pool party by “swimming” home. More precisely, he’ll make the eight-mile journey on foot, stopping to float, freestyle, and skinny-dip his way across all the back-yard pools he encounters en route, many of them belonging to friends. “In his mind he saw, with a cartographer’s eye, a string of swimming pools, a quasi-subterranean stream that curved across the county,” Cheever writes. “The day was beautiful, and it seemed to him that a long swim might enlarge and celebrate its beauty.” The idea seems whimsical, but, as with many a Cheever tale, first impressions can be deceiving. Neddy discovers that crossing a stretch of highway, clad only in a swimsuit, isn’t terribly fun; some of his pool-owning acquaintances turn out to be less than pleased to see him. “The Swimmer” comes to a famously ambiguous end—rewardingly for the reader, and probably less so for Neddy. For the author, “The Swimmer” concluded with some of the highest honors in literature: a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award for the collection in which it eventually appeared. Read the story Also from the Archive Page-Turner Anne Enright Reads “The Swimmer” From 2011: The Irish novelist joins Deborah Treisman to discuss John Cheever’s iconic, and perhaps uniquely American, short story. By Ian Crouch Page-Turner The Swimmer: Manhattan Edition A daylong swim across the borough’s pools, in homage to John Cheever’s “The Swimmer.” By Carolyn Kormann More from The New Yorker Culture Desk Oppenheimer, Nullified and Vindicated The inventor of the atomic bomb, the subject of Christopher Nolan’s new film, was the chief celebrity victim of the national trauma known as McCarthyism. By Kai Bird American Chronicles Country Music’s Culture Wars and the Remaking of Nashville Tennessee’s government has turned hard red, but a new set of outlaw songwriters is challenging Music City’s conservative ways—and ruling bro-country sound. By Emily Nussbaum Today’s newsletter was written by Nathan Burstein. Thanks for Reading. Let us know your thoughts about today’s edition. Plus, browse more newsletters and invite a friend to sign up for The Daily. You’re receiving this e-mail because you signed up for the New Yorker Classics newsletter. Manage your preferences | View our Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from the products and services that are purchased through links in our newsletters as part of our affiliate partnerships with retailers. Copyright © Condé Nast 2023. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.