title: Splash: Great Writing About Swimming (Ecco Companions)
author:  Laurel Blossom 
description: On the surface, the idea of a swimming anthology may seem all wet, but as with swimming itself, a whole lot more goes on beneath the surface than meets the eye. Laurel Blossom, a poet by trade, has assembled a remarkably eclectic group of writers that, one after another, builds a volume of short fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that works together like a medley relay team unified by a single pursuit. The peripatetic George Plimpton dips his toes in for the preface to this "melange of stories, reminiscences, and accounts by various folk--some champions, some not--sporting, competing, whatever in swimming pools, bays, lakes, oceans" before handing off to the likes of, among others, Ray Bradbury, Maxine Kumin, John Cheever, Olympic gold medalists Dawn Fraser and Don Schollander, Jack London, Anne Sexton, and John Updike. The thought of reading the words of these fine writers should have you jumping eagerly into the deep end of the marvelous literary pool they've created. <i>--Jeff Silverman</i>
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  > For Alex Page, my swimming sister
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER 1
  
  Step out of Brixton underground station and it is a carnival of steel drums,
  the white noise of traffic, and that man on the corner shouting, “God loves
  you,” even to the unlovable.
  
  “Tickets for the Brixton Academy tonight,” yells a ticket tout at the station
  entrance. “Buying and selling, tickets for the Brixton Academy!” Commuters
  shake their heads at promoters and preachers who t