So much to think about after reading this book. Being different in a regulated society like Communist Poland is hard enough, but add the complexity of being gay and falling in love with someone whose political beliefs are the opposite of yours really takes the cake. I'm guessing that English is not Jedrowski's mother language. His command of English is excellent and his emotions are so evident in his writing.

What a surprise this book was! It got mentioned as similar to "Call Me By Your Name", which I finally read for the first time right after the movie came out since everyone was buying it, and figured it wouldn't be as good. I was definitely wrong. Short...sweet...the writing was like reading lyrical prose...three dimensional characters poured from the pages...

Even though you know where this story will end (being compared to the "Name"), and not necessarily bringing anything new to this particular genre, it still grabs you from page one until the very end. If you're a fan of this kind of story, you'll really enjoy this one.

Ludwik grows up in a tumultuous Poland, one after Stalin and before the collapse of Soviet control. In many ways, this time period mirrors the reality of Poland’s existence - caught between worlds. The story follows Ludwik as he starts to understand his feeling toward his best friend growing up and later a man named Janusz who he meets on a “voluntary” agricultural labor retreat before graduating university. Sharing glances at first, Ludwik and Janusz explore their seemingly intrinsic connection in moments shared while swimming and in conversations about James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. After returning to Warsaw to work, Ludwik and Janusz’s connection is tested by party affiliation and the general realities of both living and having a queer relationship under Communist rule.

The generation Ludwik was born into is a major player in the movement to upend the Communist regime in Poland. Born after Stalin’s demise, they are students and laborers, tired of the system and wanting freedom. So many books set in this time and this space rely heavily on the harshness of Soviet rule. Jedrowski’s book, however, is a tender exploration into the sacrifices made by a queer couple. It remains realistic without surrendering beauty and nuance. I truly hope to see more from Jedrowski.

A Quiet but Powerful Love Story.

Love comes in many forms. In this case, this story is about a romance that unfolds between two young men, Ludwik and Janusz, during the 1980s in Germany.

This book truly makes the reader contemplate and think about civil liberties. Ludwik and Janusz love eachother in a time and place where their love is simply unacceptable. While I cannot imagine what it must have been like to experience such oppression, Jedrowski does an excellent job illustrating that for the reader.

The writing was excellent and the character development was too.

Definitely recommended.

A beautiful, heartbreaking debut work of historical fiction written about the gay male experience in communist Poland as the main character, Ludwik, struggles with his feelings of love and desire for a man, the danger of being gay in post-WWII Poland, and how communist control effects every aspect of his life. This is both an expression of the gay experience that I have personally never read before; and a depiction of a society and government that is dysfunctional, inhumane, and anti-poor. Particularly poignant still in 2020 and an elegiac debut. Jedrowski is an author I am excited to read more from.

Tomasz Jedrowski’s debut novel, Swimming in the Dark, is a heart-breaking masterpiece destined to be an instant classic.

From the hauntingly beautiful prologue, in which neither of the principal characters is named, it’s clear that this story will be told in the form of a letter with remembrances from one young man to his former male lover.

Set in Wrocław, Poland in the early 1980’s and a year later in Brooklyn, NY, the story of Ludwik Głowacki and his lover, Janusz, is at times both beautiful and tragic - alternating between love and loneliness; obedience and resistance; hope and despair.

Ludwik begins by writing to Janusz about his first crush, Beniek, when both boys were age 9. He tries to convey the devastation he felt when he discovered that Beniek’s family had abruptly left their home in Poland for Israel, being forced out by the communists because they were Jews.

Years later, when Ludwik and Janusz met at and graduated from a communist summer camp, they traveled together to Poland’s lake country. Speaking of that idyllic time together Ludwik said “I don’t know how many days we stayed at the lake, because each one was like a whole world, every moment new and unrepeatable. In a way these felt like the first days of my life, as if I’d been born by that lake and its water and you.”

After returning to the city, Janusz accepted a position in the communist Office of Press Control, a bureaucracy that Ludwik referred to as the Office of Censorship. At the same time, Ludwik returned to his academic life and began work on his thesis.

The tension that developed as a result of their illegal relationship and their competing career choices, with the perks of party membership for Janusz and a near poverty level existence for Ludwik and his grandmother, ultimately forced a series of inescapable decisions on Ludwik, his professor, his Granny, and his closest friend.

If for no other reason, and there are many reasons to do so, Jedrowski’s lyric prose makes this novel an absolute must read.

I received an Advance Review Copy of ‘Swimming in the Dark’ from NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers in exchange for an honest review. #SwimmingintheDark #NetGalley

Young gay love against Poland's communist regime of the 1980's... Illegal, seductive and very true to the context.

To me, as a young Polish woman, reading Jedrowski's breathtaking lyrical prose made my heart full. I had never made this many highlights in any fictional book. It is written from the perspective of Ludwik, our main character, addressing his lover Janusz in the second person as "You," making his writing ever more intimate. As a bonus, "Swimming in the Dark" is a prime resource to learn about some of Poland's modern history in a very personal way.

Please read this book. It deserves more than 5 stars.

"Having oranges and bananas every month of the year - is that freedom to you?"
"You were wearing the same white linen shirt as the day before, dried overnight, cherry-stained, unbuttoned to reveal your collarbones, and dark halos of your nipples guessable beneath the fabric."

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have seen this book being compared to Call Me By Your Name, and I can see why. However, I think this book surpasses CMBYN because it does not feel like a fever-dreamed fantasy. It is the story of first love and self-discovery, but one set against the brutal backdrop of political and social unrest, of how our deepest personal lives are affected by the world we live in, and not always in the ways we think. The writing is clear and ringing and I felt like Ludwik was telling me the story. The narration style reminds me of Lie With Me by Phillipe Besson, but more precise in how Ludwik is more nuanced, more in control of his own voice. My only critique is the ending. It felt slightly unresolved, but this is perhaps just my hope for something more.

I have very mixed feelings about this book. There were some structural decisions that I found very, very hard to get past, but then, on the other hand, there were some truly gripping moments - particularly in the second half of the book - that had me glued to the page.

Let's address the less than stellar aspects first: primarily, the decision to address Janusz in the second person. It's a bold move to do this, no matter the book, and here, as in most cases, that boldness doesn't really pay off. I think the author may have been aiming to increase the sense of intimacy between Janusz and Ludwik, but if anything, for me, it only increased the distance between them. I felt like I never really got a grip on Janusz as a character: why - aside from the obvious - Ludwik would love him, and why we as the readers should care about him. And even if the purpose was, in fact, to the establish a sense of distance between them the use of second person alienates the reader from the jump, instead of letting the distance between the characters reveal itself more organically.

But speaking of organic reveals...the organization of information (backstory from Ludwik's childhood, his current life, etc) could be very disorienting at times, flashbacks and flashforwards busting into scenes during moments that didn't really need to be interrupted. I cared less about this as the book went on, but it was definitely a challenge to get through at the beginning.

The second half of this book is far and away the stronger half, with every ounce of conflict you could imagine from reading the plot synopsis cropping up. And I was impressed with the deft way these moments were handled; none of it ever reads like melodrama, despite a lot of really heavy stuff being pulled out in a relatively short amount of space. And even though I don't think anything was rushed I do think this book would have been all the stronger if the more engaging things in the second half of the book - like Ludwik and Janusz being on the opposite ends of the political spectrum - had cropped up more in the first half. Like, that example alone is worth an extra hundred pages; there is just SO MUCH there, and it's a shame that it wasn't mined as thoroughly as it could have been.

So, yeah, this is a difficult one for me to figure out how to feel about, and I don't know that I'd ever recommend it out of hand to anyone. But if there are readers out there looking for an LGBTQ story or a story set in this place and time and they don't mind a few yous, then this is for......that reader.

Beautiful and poignant - this novel is not only a gorgeous (and devastating) love story but a fascinating look at history. Wholeheartedly recommend this title and it is a must have for library collections.