Reviewed by Wendy Gallagher – 24/08/01
Night Swimming By Emma Neale Published Vintage, 1998
Capturing a glimpse of a hauntingly familiar face on a London train sparks off a look back into the past of Marie’s youth. As an adult she struggles to make sense of the mysterious events surrounding her teenage friendship with Jenny in an effort to end her grief and move on with her life.
Adolescence, a tumultuous experience in itself where we are swamped with new experiences and a growing awareness of the mind, body and spirit, can be made even more of a challenge when we are faced with tragedy. This story is told in the first person by Marie, who as “the new girl” in a small New Zealand town, feels displaced and isolated until she meets Jenny "We were a double-barrelled entity: JennyandMarie. And we were loaded, high: cocked to go off in a blaze of hope. Hope is what we’d have called it then, I suppose. Now I think it was youth. An eaten fuse." Jenny has the confidence and exuberance that Marie lacks, and as the pair grow closer Marie discovers that not everyone comes from a nice normal family with a loving Mum and Dad in a stable relationship.
We are told at the beginning of the book that Jenny disappears. Slowly details around the disappearance are illuminated as the book progresses to its heart wrenching end. It is a nostalgic, sad tale of grief and memory where we are reminded how friendships forged in the fire of adolescence are burned upon our souls to be carried with us into our adult years. We remember what it is like to form the next strongest bond outside of our family where we are unconditionally accepted for who we are, and learn how to accept another unconditionally. And through the book we experience how the painful loss of such a bond can reverberate long after the event.
Night Swimming (1998) is the first novel by Emma Neale. She has since published a book of poetry titled Sleeve Notes (1999) and a second novel Little Moon (2001). Dunedin born Emma lived in London while completing a PhD on New Zealand expatriate women writers. She is currently living back in New Zealand working as a freelance writer and editor. In November 2000 Emma received the Creative New Zealand’s annual $20,000 Todd New Writers’ Bursary award which she will use to complete her third novel.
Night Swimming is an impressive first novel, poetically written with vivid, sometimes humorous, metaphor and imagery as in, “Then she sprayed herself with Jenny’s perfume, ‘like she was a blowfly trying to commit aerosol suicide’, and Jenny, already riled, told Marion it was too strong.”
Jenny and Marie are portrayed as lively and realistic characters. Anyone who has ever been a teenage girl can relate to them wholeheartedly. Other characters in lesser roles are no less convincing, especially Jenny’s father and stepmother and siblings. I applaud the author for avoiding the first time novelist’s trap of resorting to cliches and stereotyping.
The book is not altogether dark and disturbing. Enough lighthearted, even comical, moments are interspersed among the intensity of much of the novel to make this an utterly enjoyable read. This is not a long book, but it offers 196 pages of compelling reading.
