Jackson Free Press

Then: "The beach was crowded. Marcella had not expected all these people everywhere—she had forgotten it was Saturday, forgotten, even, that it was June."

Marcella Atkinson lives alone in Connecticut, away from the Cape Cod tennis courts, parties and bad memories, but she's overwhelmed and seeks refuge at the beach. She's a person with secrets.

"The Swimming Pool" revolves around two southern families, the McClatcheys and the Atkinsons, who summer in Mashantum on Cape Cod. The reader encounters them seven years after the murder of Betsy McClatchey and the death of her husband, Cecil, soon after. While their children, Jed and Callie, are still dealing with the loss and pain, the two families connect via Marcella Atkinson's daughter, Toni, who works for Callie McClatchey as a nanny.

Jed finds his way to Marcella's home to return her old bathing suit, a token kept by his father, Cecil, and hidden in the McClatchey family's summer home. Like his father, Jed also finds his way into Marcella's bed.

While Lecraw's writing is full of vivid descriptions, including a few lurid sex scenes, it is also packed with mundane details of day-to-day living, parenthood and family interactions. In other words, it is full of real life. Skillfully, LeCraw tells the same story from different perspectives. The book weaves a web of mystery and overlapping love stories, highlighting the complexity of desire, duplicity and delusion.

LeCraw often times catches the snags of the divergence between the things people say and the things they do. At the start of an affair between two characters, she writes: "Neither of them was the type: that was what they kept saying to each other. Their mutual bemusement became part of their bond."

"The Swimming Pool" is rife with so many levels of infidelity, lies and fragility that it teetered on the impossible. And while the writing was fine, there are no spectacular moments of beauty or profundity. It didn't move me; it didn't change me. But perhaps that's not what books like this are supposed to do.

Signed, first editions of "The Swimming Pool" are available at Lemuria Books (202 Banner Hall, 4465 Interstate 55 N., 601-366-7619)

Then: "The beach was crowded. Marcella had not expected all these people everywhere—she had forgotten it was Saturday, forgotten, even, that it was June."

Marcella Atkinson lives alone in Connecticut, away from the Cape Cod tennis courts, parties and bad memories, but she's overwhelmed and seeks refuge at the beach. She's a person with secrets.

"The Swimming Pool" revolves around two southern families, the McClatcheys and the Atkinsons, who summer in Mashantum on Cape Cod. The reader encounters them seven years after the murder of Betsy McClatchey and the death of her husband, Cecil, soon after. While their children, Jed and Callie, are still dealing with the loss and pain, the two families connect via Marcella Atkinson's daughter, Toni, who works for Callie McClatchey as a nanny.

Jed finds his way to Marcella's home to return her old bathing suit, a token kept by his father, Cecil, and hidden in the McClatchey family's summer home. Like his father, Jed also finds his way into Marcella's bed.

While Lecraw's writing is full of vivid descriptions, including a few lurid sex scenes, it is also packed with mundane details of day-to-day living, parenthood and family interactions. In other words, it is full of real life. Skillfully, LeCraw tells the same story from different perspectives. The book weaves a web of mystery and overlapping love stories, highlighting the complexity of desire, duplicity and delusion.

LeCraw often times catches the snags of the divergence between the things people say and the things they do. At the start of an affair between two characters, she writes: "Neither of them was the type: that was what they kept saying to each other. Their mutual bemusement became part of their bond."

"The Swimming Pool" is rife with so many levels of infidelity, lies and fragility that it teetered on the impossible. And while the writing was fine, there are no spectacular moments of beauty or profundity. It didn't move me; it didn't change me. But perhaps that's not what books like this are supposed to do.

Signed, first editions of "The Swimming Pool" are available at Lemuria Books (202 Banner Hall, 4465 Interstate 55 N., 601-366-7619)