According to an interview with Seattle Refined, the author had this to say:
"....the book started off from Gil's point of view completely. He was on a beach , he
had a dog. All sorts of things were different. And I started writing, and I maybe wrote
about 30,000 words from Gil's point of view, and I thought actually you're not a really
nice man, I don't want to hear from you anymore. So I thought I'd really like to hear from
your wife and your daughter to get a different perspective on it rather than it being from
his point of view. And I had to cut about 20,000 words and so I went back and started writing from Flora's point of view. And then, because Ingrid had already disappeared, I thought,
How am I going to incorporate her. I decided it would have to be letters...so, that's how
that structure came about, by accident or by me getting annoyed with Gil really."
What was the inspiration for the Swimming Pavilion?
"It's a real house that exists in Dorset, a village in Scotland,which I renamed to
Spanish Green. It's actually a converted tennis pavilion. You can go and stay in it, it's
owned by the National Trust......it really exists."
Why did the author chose the title Swimming Lessons?
"I had lots of different titles while I was writing, working titles. There was one that
was something like The 23rd of June, Wednesday Afternoon About 2:17 PM, which
everyone was saying that's just far too long a title. I also had Spanish Green which is
also the name of the village. But none of them were quite working and it was
actually my foreign rights agent in the UK who came up with Swimming Lessons
that we all agreed that we liked."
Book Discussion for Swimming Lessons: Thursday, February 1st from 10 - 11:30 AM