A stranger destroying an already-crumbling marriage hardly seems like a unique plot formula. However, as soon as the beautiful, deranged Kitty Finch shows up at an English family's villa in Nice, Deborah Levy's storytelling becomes allusive, elliptical and disturbing. Her novel not only explores relationships; it also probes into the nature of childhood trauma, exile, depression and creativity. "Swimming Home" uses spare but fresh prose to tell a tale from multiple viewpoints and several generations. At its centre sits poet Joe Jacobs, whose history as a Jewish child in the Polish woods haunts him. Together, Joe's teenaged daughter, Nina, and 80-year-old doctor Madeleine offer an authentic range of female experience while his seemingly victimized wife, Isabel, constantly upends readers' expectations. This shocking novel harrowingly explores loss and longing, ending with the adult Nina's terrifying understanding that she can never know when the past begins and ends.

Although a small book, the story is very disturbing. A somewhat confusion conclusion as well. I choose this book because it was a finalist in the Man Booker Award books, it was a disturbing book on many levels. Not one of my favourites reads.

Spoiler Alert! I read this because it was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and was surprised at how weak it was. Characters don't make sense, the writing is juvenile and the ridiculous story trajectory provoked in me a suspicion that Levy started this novel with a specific man in mind who she would like to see floating in a swimming pool. The spoiler here is not the dumb ending but that the book is not worth reading.

Great writing - it took me almost 3/4 of the way through the book before I cared about any of the characters, but once there I was fully engaged. Booker Shortlisted 2012

Amazingly concise and direct. I enjoyed it much more than Bring Up The Bodies, which won the Man Booker.

I've just read the last page, and I am completely and utterly blown away by "Swimming Home." Rarely does a book hit squarely in the middle of me. Deborah Levy plunges readers into this contained and controlled world that feels crystalline and surreal. Swimming in this dream world that is littered with sharp edges, and a steady, off-kilter, pulsing rhythm, there is a compulsion to follow the beats that propel you to its tragic end.