An amazing new literary voice, Jessica Keener explores the fine-laced network of tangled familial relations in language both bold and intricate. Night Swim is the deeply moving and devastatingly beautiful work of a fearless writer.

Jessica Keener steps boldly into the terrain of Eugene O'Neill, conjuring up the pathologies and quirks of a besieged Boston family in stark, quivering detail that never entirely distracts us from the looming sense of crisis. This gripping first novel announces the arrival of a strong, distinct and fully evolved new voice.

Keener's observations perfectly capture a certain kind of 1970s adolescence: the adults who tried too hard, the sudden appearance of a joint when in the presence of older cousins, the way a grownup party could spin from fun to disturbing in a blink. Most exhilaratingly, she taps into the thrilling moments when a girl of 16 can see her future, whether in music or books or a boy's smile.

Rooted in personal sorrow, this memorable debut will strike a universal chord with readers: ‘Life was full of befores and afters.'

Like the adults in Rick Moody's Ice Storm, the central couple in this novel of 1970s suburbia are remote alcoholics. ‘Love was something distant that retired to a room on the second floor,' Sarah, the 16-year-old narrator, says, referring to her stay-at-home yet absentee mother. This is a woman who makes a divot in the soil for her drink glass while tending her roses ... This earnest debut centers on Sarah as she tunnels through new depths of loneliness ... moving.

Keener understands deeply that scene writing creates powerful moments for her characters. We learn of Sarah's irritation, fear, reticence, and desire not through discussion, but through her actions and interactions with others. And Keener's writing is lovely; she manages to build sentences that are both precise and ornate. While Keener's Night Swim tells of a girl who has lost her bearings, her hold on her novel is both assured and poised.