In John Cheever’s expert short story “The Swimmer,” the protagonist announces his intention to swim from a small afternoon gathering to his home, exclusively using an interconnected series of suburban Westchester County swimming pools. What initially presents as a lark, as he eagerly accepts drinks and warm greetings from his friends and neighbors, becomes an ever-darkening 12-page realization on the part of the audience and hero alike that Neddy Merrill’s life has collapsed in ultimately unspecified ways. He has fallen into debt and become estranged from the people he loved. The home to which he has been journeying, in very mythologically tinged fashion, is now empty and uninhabited.
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