Sometimes the hardest thing about life is surviving it. Let's get in the water and swim!
Newly widowed Elizabeth from an Irish village on the Atlantic coast has double reason to grieve. Her late husband, who had been a reluctant general practitioner in the village, had got her into a lot of trouble with his hidden debts - now to start afresh on the threshold of retirement. Lucy, a burnt-out 40-something who hails from here, is no better off: her philandering husband preferred a younger model, the gruelling shifts at the Dublin hospital had drained her of her vigour and her son had just gone through the most cackling puberty. Both women are forced to change their attitude to life, as fortune only comes to those who are prepared. After all, Jo - Lucy's mother and Elizabeth's friend, who is now in her seventy-fifth year - knows one handy recipe. Whether it's April or August, drizzle or no wind, she swims night after night in the nearby sea bay protected by majestic reefs. A cool bath in Eva's robes is more balm for the soul than sipping whiskey away from the local hypocrites. Moreover, the water will undermine all fears, even if the devil thinks to bring fateful troubles to a pile as big as Mount Everest... A novel about indomitable female cohesion across generations. And it sometimes has to push through at a very unexpected pace: sign and kraul style.
