During a hot, laborious summer at an agricultural camp in 1980s Poland, the protagonist, Ludwik, reluctantly allows a handsome stranger named Januszto borrow his copy of Giovanni’s Room. A similar exchange sets off an illicit romance of a different kind in Tomasz Jedrowski’s devastating debut novel Swimming in the Dark (William Morrow). The lesson here is clear: life often takes its cues and permission directly from art. In Inferno, while on a stop in the second circle of hell, Dante hears the story of a woman who fell into an illicit romance with her brother-in-law after they started reading a romance novel together. Lyrical and sensual, immersive and intense, Tomasz Jedrowski's indelible and thought-provoking literary debut explores freedom and love in all its incarnations.Coat, Shirt, Pants, and Shoes by Balenciaga. Shifting from the intoxication of first love to the quiet melancholy of growing up and growing apart, Swimming in the Dark is a potent blend of romance, postwar politics, intrigue, and history. Their secret love and personal and political differences slowly begin to tear them apart as both men struggle to survive in a regime on the brink of collapse. Ludwik is drawn toward impulsive acts of protest, unable to ignore rising food prices and the stark economic disparity around them. Once they return to Warsaw, the charismatic Janusz quickly rises in the political ranks of the party and is rewarded with a highly coveted government position.
But in their repressive Communist and Catholic society, the passion they share is utterly unthinkable. Inhabiting a beautiful, natural world removed from society and its constraints, Ludwik and Janusz fall deeply in love. After their camp duties are fulfilled, the pair spend a dreamlike few weeks in the countryside, bonding over an illicit copy of James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room. But a chance meeting by the river soon becomes an intense, exhilarating, and all-consuming affair.
When university student Ludwik meets Janusz at a summer agricultural camp, he is fascinated yet wary of this handsome, carefree stranger. Set in early 1980s Poland against the violent decline of Communism, a tender and passionate story of first love between two young men who eventually find themselves on opposite sides of the political divide-a stunningly poetic and heartrending literary debut for fans of André Aciman, Garth Greenwell, and Alan Hollinghurst.
Tomasz Jedrowski is a remarkable writer." - Justin Torres, bestselling author of We the Animals "Captivating both for its shimmering surfaces and its terrifying depths. "Imagine Call Me By Your Name set in Communist Poland and you'll get a sense of Jedrowski's moving debut about a consuming love affair amidst a country being torn apart." - O, The Oprah Magazine
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