Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Swimmer in the Secret Sea | 1975 | William Kotzwinkle | Buy |
| 2 | Dream of Dark Harbor | 1979 | William Kotzwinkle | Buy |
Swimmer in the Secret Sea (1975) and Dream of Dark Harbor (1979) are two of Kotzwinkle’s shorter works, each sitting somewhere between a long short story and a novella. Both were published as standalone volumes rather than within collections, which gives some sense of how Kotzwinkle and his publishers regarded them: as complete things in themselves rather than pieces of a larger mosaic.
Swimmer in the Secret Sea is the more widely known of the two. It is a quiet, spare account of a couple in a remote winter setting experiencing the loss of a newborn child, and it is written with a directness and tenderness that sets it apart from Kotzwinkle’s more fantastical or satirical work. It has stayed in print through multiple editions and is often mentioned by readers as the Kotzwinkle work that moved them most.
Dream of Dark Harbor is less discussed but belongs to the same general mode: lyrical, somewhat mysterious, with Kotzwinkle’s characteristic interest in what lies just beyond the edge of ordinary experience. Together the two pieces show a side of his writing that his more comic or satirical novels can sometimes obscure, a genuine capacity for stillness and emotional precision.