The Swimmer single work   short story  
Issue Details: First known date: 1999... 1999 The Swimmer
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'DAY ONE : The Tulips

They enter the room and its silence enters them. The predictable motel furniture is unnaturally and watchfully still. This is one of several honeymoon suites in the long west wing that faces the sea. There are two plastic-sealed slices of dark fruit cake on a tray with a half-bottle of champagne. She goes across to the vase of tulips courtesy of the management and touches one flower so that it shivers on its stalk. He closes the door and puts the cases down. It is as if the wedding, its dinner, speeches, dancing and drinking, tears and hugs and bad but sweetly affectionate jokes have all sunk into a cold black sea. The two of them might be a couple married for more than half a century and now close at last to the end of it all.'  (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Meanjin vol. 58 no. 2 1999 Z612628 1999 periodical issue 1999 pg. 57-65
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Explorations in Creative Writing Kevin Brophy , Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 2003 Z1073802 2003 selected work criticism prose short story essay poetry Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 2003 pg. 133-141
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Meanjin Online 2015 21124465 2015 periodical issue 2015
    Note: March 26, 2015
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Meanjin A-Z : Fiction 1980 to Now Jonathan Green (editor), Melbourne : Melbourne University Press , 2018 13957310 2018 anthology short story

    'Think of an Australian writer and chances are that at some time or another they’ve had short fiction published in Meanjin.
    'For the first time a treasure trove of this writing leaps from the pages of Meanjin into a book of fine fiction.
    'You’ll read Tim Winton, David Malouf and recent work by Jennifer Mills. In between you’ll find John Kinsella, Eliot Perlman, Elizabeth Jolley, Nicholas Jose, Bruce Pascoe, Melissa Lucashenko, A.S. Patric and many more. '  (Publication summary)

    Melbourne : Melbourne University Press , 2018
    pg. 25-34

Works about this Work

Autobiography of a Story Kevin Brophy , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Explorations in Creative Writing 2003; (p. 142-145)
Autobiography of a Story Kevin Brophy , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Explorations in Creative Writing 2003; (p. 142-145)
Last amended 17 Feb 2021 13:21:46
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