The Swimmers

"On the 9th of July 1986, the Homosexual Law Reform Bill was passed in New Zealand. Despite merciless and divisive social debate, the stories of gay people, long submerged in mainstream heterosexual culture surfaced; and a more compassionate light was shone on the genuine crisis posed by the AIDS epidemic. The swimmers is the fictional story of a young runaway, Celie. From makeshift camps and squats, she writes her dead grandmother letters in which she describes the failure of her first tenuous gay relationship and her confusion of swimming and dying. Her story parallels that of her lost Uncle Jack who disappeared years earlier after being rejected by his mother for admitting a homosexual relationship. Uncle Jack returns home, dying of AIDS, at the crux of vociferous opposition to the Reform Bill. In what at times feels like a quirky comedy of errors, the story traces the disruption of familial relationships and their relentless, resilient recovery"--Back cover.