Swimming Studies

Leanne Shapton’s Swimming Studies is a hybrid memoir that dissects a life shaped by water. It operates not as a linear narrative but as a series of linked sketches—written and visual—that map the psychological terrain of an athlete. The project begins in the predawn chill of Canadian community pools, tracing Shapton’s teenage years as a national-level competitor who twice reached the Olympic trials. This world is defined by total sacrifice, a blur of chlorinated hours where identity is pared down to split seconds and the relentless meterage of practice. The core of the book lives in the aftermath of that competitive fervor. Shapton examines how the discipline, isolation, and sensory specificity of swimming seep into her adult life as an artist and writer. The text moves fluidly between past and present, juxtaposing memories of grueling workouts with contemporary reflections on recreational bathing in pools from New York to Switzerland. Her spare prose and accompanying watercolors—depictions of pools, collections of swimsuits, studies of light—serve as a visual grammar for a nonverbal experience. This is ultimately a study of translation: how the rigor of athletic practice informs creative practice, how a body trained for competition learns to seek pleasure, and how the solitude of the pool becomes a metaphor for artistic labor. Shapton posits that the true legacy of sport is not trophies but a honed attention to detail and a deep understanding of routine. The book captures the haunting persistence of a former self, the ‘swimmer’ who remains a silent partner in every subsequent endeavor. Swimming Studies transcends sports memoir to become a universal meditation on obsession, memory, and the shapes a lifelong passion takes when its primary purpose evaporates. It speaks to anyone who has ever been defined by a pursuit, offering a nuanced portrait of how we carry our pasts and reconcile ambition with the quieter contours of daily life.