A group of daily swimmers is thrown for a loop when a crack appears in the swimming pool they frequent. Among them is Alice, who is slowly losing herself to dementia. With her daily routine broken, Alice feels thrust into chaos as her childhood memories of being in a Japanese internment camp surface, and her daughter struggles to help her.

First off, I don't think you can actually call The Swimmers a novel because it is so extremely short. I guess you would categorize Otsuka's novella as experimental fiction. The story is mostly told in an odd second-person format that takes some getting used to. I was set to give it a disappointing two stars, but Otsuka's descriptions of Alice's entrance into a memory care facility really struck home for me, especially when I realized that Alice is the author's mother.