Drowning Lessons

The stories in Drowning Lessons engage water as both a vital and a potentially hazardous presence in our lives. "e;You can touch water,"e; says Peter Selgin, "e;you can taste it and feel its temperature, you can even hold it in your hands. Still it remains elusive, ill-defined, shaped only by what surrounds or contains it."e;With empathy and wit Selgin introduces us to characters navigating the choppy waters of human relationships. In "e;Swimming"e; an avid swimmer fights the stasis in his marriage by prodding his out-of-shape but contented wife to take up the sport-with near-disastrous results. A pond is the setting of "e;The Wolf House,"e; which tells of the reunion and dissolution of a group of high school friends brought together for a funeral. "e;The Sinking Ship Man"e; chronicles a day in the life of an African American caretaker in charge of the only remaining survivor of the Titanic disaster. In "e;El Malecon"e; a toothless old Dominican tries to recapture his lost dignity by "e;borrowing"e; a shiny Cadillac convertible and aiming it down the coastal highway toward his childhood village. In "e;The Sea Cure"e; two travelers in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula confront death in the form of a mysterious woman living in an abandoned beachfront apartment complex.In all thirteen tales in Drowning Lessons, Selgin exhibits a keen eye for the forces that push people toward-and sometimes beyond-their very human limits, forces as intrinsic, elemental, and elusive as the liquid that makes up two-thirds of their bodies. These stories remind us that of all bodies of water, none is deeper or more dangerous than our own.