The Union of Synchronised Swimmers (Conversations with Spiderman and Other Lost Languages)
A jewel of a short novel, a magic weave of intertwined fates.
Six girls grow up on a piece of land between two rivers, belonging to no state. Swimming is their passion, but also a way to reach out to the world. The girls form a team of synchronized swimming, performing skilful tricks in and under water. Far away in Helsinki, Anita falls in love with the street performer Blue Flame. In California, Paulina gets on board a fishing boat to acquire the ingredients for the traditional soup in her homeland. On a Caribbean island, Betty gambles away all her money. The stories of young rootless women, suffering from undefined feelings of longing, come together in a dazzling multifaceted novella, reaching across the world.
info
Year of publication
2019
Original title
Vesileikit
Page count
118
Original publisher
Otava Publishing Company
Original language of publication
Finnish
Reviews
Helsingin Sanomat newspaper
"There are a lot of subsurface vibrations in the book. Desire, as well as clear threats, but we don’t know whether those actualize. Ingeniously disconnected stories entice the reader to continue. On the other hand, they suggest that Sandu also has larger stories to tell…
The accurate, delicate and subtle writing relies on the refined and sparing characteristics of the Finnish modernism."Suomen Kuvalehti
"Cristina Sandu's narration is magical ... Her poetic and airy prose weaves together the strongly metaphorical and the realistic... In these moving stories about the fates of Eastern European women, her narrative is universal and titanic."
Minna-Elina Piskorec, Toisinkoinen blog 10.7.2020
"The chapters of the novel have an astonishingly subtle and thoughtful dialogue...Sandu’s novel should be read in slow-pace, sensing the mood and questions and opportunities in between the lines...this noveI is about destinies that share a joint feeling of longing and yearning. Cristina Sandu has once again written a piece that proves her great talent."
Lindsay Zier-Vogel, author of Letters to Amelia
"Cristina Sandu’s spare and sparkling prose is intimate and visceral. A deeply moving story about six women who dare to dream bigger than their muddy river, whose lives splinter from their tight synchronized formations into an unflinching, often unforgiving world. An exquisite and powerful read."
Yelena Moskovich, author of The Natashas
"With structural, determined prose, Cristina Sandu embodies the Eastern bloc cryptology of storytelling where strings of non-verbal cues and mistranslations become ways of speaking. Sandu evokes that eerie Soviet sense of hope, brimming with futility and grace."
Quote
"Maybe they imagined they were stars, or angels, or insane birds. Sometimes they grabbed each other’s hands and legs and twisted them so harshly that it was a miracle nothing broke. When they all squatted in the water with just their hands above the surface, it was as if they were praying. There was something terrifying about it."