A hazy and fluid coming of age story told from the perspective of 15 year old Julie, at the moment of her own queer sexual awakening. Evocatively set in the early 1990s, REM, skater culture and the smoke-blur of clove cigarettes run throughout. The read is gentle, dreamlike and detached, as Julie is haunted by the absence of her swimming superstar brother and seeks to re-discover him - and herself - in the depths and rhythms of the swimming pool.
I pushed off. Nothing but a lane line separated me from the poolful of swimmers, but Lane Six was quiet. I couldn't feel any difference between my body and the water. I swam a smooth line. I was in my own pool. I was swimming the blue parts on a map of the world. I didn't try to swim fast, I listened to the water, I didn't kick, and it was true, Coach was wrong, in Lane Six I could swim 500 yards. I touched the wall and turned and kept swimming. My mind went to Alexis, not to her, but to the feeling of her, the change that had arced the air when she leaned against me and said, Come here. Lane Six put that feeling on my skin.
