Emma Gattey

Where We Swim by Ingrid Horrocks (Victoria University Press, 2021), 224pp., $35

A textual act of immersion—or rather, repeated languid textual acts of immersion—Ingrid Horrocks’ Where We Swim submerges us in glorious and inglorious waters across the globe, albeit in a thin (which is to say, privileged) cross-section of human swimming sites. From Days Bay and Waiheke, whale-bonding in Wellington Harbour and contracting UTIs in the Mōkau estuary, to the gilded pools of gated communities in Medellín, Columbia, the artificially azure waters of Hilton hotel pools, the brisk North Sea and even a closed-off, piranha-less section of the Amazon River, these swimming holes are largely for the global elite. This watery stratification does not, however, lessen the impact of the writing, the project (‘to remember why we swam in the first place’) or Horrocks’ voice, which is ever-alert to her family’s privilege: a pleasurable burr in her side that Horrocks is constantly questioning, grappling with—sometimes even squirming in discomfort. [Read more…]