Saturday, January 5, 2019

Not A Happy Camper



“An overbearing alpha male gets his comeuppance in this smart, creepy thriller from Smith. Smith nicely balances the borderline-supernatural events with Alex’s mundane struggles as his blustering defenses crumble. Sharp, clear prose is a plus. This is a remarkably adept performance.” 
                          —Publishers Weekly, *STARRED Review 





HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: How many times have you started reading a book, and realized—you could not put it down? Isn’t that the best? And that’s exactly what happened to me with JP Smith’s THE DROWNING.


I sat in the chair for hours, I mean not moving, and so much for making dinner. We had pizza, courtesy of JP Smith.



Not A Happy Camper 
    by JP Smith
I’ve always shied away from writing out of my own experiences. My thought was always that I’ve lived it, it’s gone, good night, goodbye, au revoir. 


But I’ve begun to find that some memories just stay with me, as though waiting for a fresh look. My sixth novel, Airtight, was based on something I did back in 1968 (yes, it was illegal, and, yes, it was fun), and I was able to build a story out of a character very different from me. In my screenplay, Somewhere Else in the Universe, I wrote about a 14-year-old boy from the Bronx getting involved with a UFO group in Manhattan back in the 60s, an experience that indirectly led me to become a writer (a subject covered by my blog on it, with the same title, on my website).

The Drowning became my first pure genre fiction, a psychological thriller. I’m not, per se, a thriller writer. All of my novels have in one way or another incorporated genre elements, whether thriller or mystery, though in the past they’ve rightly fallen under the category of literary fiction. I do enjoy thrillers on film and TV, but I don’t read many of them as novels, so I know that my approach will always be different from what readers might expect from genre writing.


The Drowning has its origins in my second year of summer camp, in Upstate New York, when I was eight years old. Towards the end of the summer our swimming counselor lined us up at the dock overlooking the wide expanse of the lake itself. Until then, not being able to swim and deathly afraid of deep water (both still applicable), I’d kept to the shallower waters. But he insisted we all jump in. I begged him not to force me, I told him I couldn’t swim, and he promptly threw me in. 

Of course I began to drown.


I still remember it vividly. He panicked and jumped in beside me. Furious not just that I had grabbed hold of a gold chain around his neck, twisting it until he began to choke, but that I had failed him somehow: I was the kid who’d learned nothing from him. Furious, he swam me out to a raft, put me on it, and told me: “Either swim back on your own or stay here and die.”


Years later I realized that something could be done with this: what if the counselor had forgotten about young Joey Proctor, as I called him? Night has fallen, and only when the counselor—Alex Mason—is asked what happened to Joey does he come down to the lakefront and shine his flashlight on the raft. And Joey isn’t there. An exhaustive police search reveals that he isn’t in the lake or anywhere on campus.


Twenty-one years later the counselor is now a billionaire real estate developer in New York, with a beautiful wife and two daughters, and it seems Joey has returned to get his revenge. And he’s not about to give up.


But The Drowning isn’t (to some advance readers’ consternation) a straightforward story. It isn’t a procedural, as one might expect from a thriller with this subject, and there are no easy answers. Real life is full of mysteries—unsolved crimes, missing persons cases that have gone cold after months, years, even decades.


But there is a solution in The Drowning, and it’s not what you might expect it may be, because, well, fiction can do that to you, can’t it?

Like the movies, fiction can mess with your head. One of the characters in the novel is, in fact, a documentary filmmaker working on a movie about an urban legend that had haunted the camp for decades, about a man who, every seven years, comes down from the hills to kidnap one of the boys. 

Twenty-one years after the disappearance of Joey Proctor the filmmaker says to Alex, “I play with reality. I bend it, I speculate, I make what you think is real into something completely incredible, just as I make the unbelievable into something you take as the honest truth. What we sometimes think of as reality may be just the opposite.” 

Alex Mason isn’t the only person drawn into the narrative; the reader is, as well.

For me, this lies at the heart of The Drowning. There are tales we tell, and those we sincerely believe, and then there are those we want to believe. And there are those which have already absorbed us. Am I right, or am I right…?


HANK: You know how I feel about his, Reds and readers. How do we know who to trust? Or who to believe? And when to say whom? 

So on this (rainy in Boston) Saturday—summer camp. Where did you go, and was there swimming?

And a copy of THE DROWNING for one lucky commenter! (US only, please, says the publisher.)


***************
(And yesterday’s winner of TRUST ME is holdenj! Email me at hyan at whdh dot com with your address!)



The Drowning will be published by Sourcebooks Landmark on January 8th, 2019. J.P. Smith’s website is: jpsmith.org.

72 comments:

  1. This sounds like quite a mystery, J.P., and now I’m anxious to find out what happened to Joey.
    Not being a swimmer myself, I am appalled that a supposedly-trustworthy counselor would throw a child into the water like that . . . . something to ponder and a book to definitely look forward to reading . . . .

    There’s no summer camp in my past, Hank, and no swimming, either.

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  2. I am very intrigued by that premise. Must read for sure.

    I went to summer camp in Jr. high and high school. Loved it! Yes, there was swimming, but I could already swim by that age, so it wasn't a big deal to me.

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    1. Do you remember where you learned to swim ?

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    2. At the city pool. My parents paid for swim lessons.

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  3. This book is going to do the same to me, Hank! I was holding my breath just reading this!
    While I never went to summer camp, my dad wanted me to learn to swim. Never worked out! I still, at my age, have a fear of swimming pools! The ocean or lakes I will get in, in fact, they calm me down. Pools, scare me! It's a long story why.

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    1. Oh Deb— that’s so unfortunate! Do you think you could still learn?

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  4. JP, how did YOU get off the raft? You must tell us!

    I grew up going to girl scout camp in the dry Santa Inez Mountains near Santa Barbara. I adored it. Swimming, horseback riding, elaborate flag ceremonies. Sharing the same tent cabin with the same friends every year, the only time I saw them. All-camp singing after meals, all women and girls. I could get as dirty as I wanted and nobody cared. Bliss. Not a spooky thing happened that I can recall, but I've always had the rose-tinted glasses thing going on - I just might not have noticed.

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    1. Oh good question! Yes, love to hear the rest of that story!

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    2. Now I can respond! All I will say is that I lived to write the novel. But I still don't swim and am still afraid of deep water.

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  5. Totally hooked, J.P. there is absolutely no way I am not leaving this site and going directly to Amazon.

    By the time I was old enough to go to summer camp, which I loved, my brother had taken care of the swimming thing. He's nine years older than I and thus, my built in baby sitter. Not a good thing when hormones rage and you're stuck with a little sister who wants to go to the pool. He told me I would be able to swim if I took my tube off and jumped from the diving board. I was three or four. I watched him walk to the beach with his girl du jour as I stood on the end of the diving board. The lifeguard was off duty. I jumped. I remember the water closing over my head. I dog paddled to the ladder. I have a life long love of swimming and scuba diving. Diving boards terrify me.

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    1. You still made it to the ladder? Wow— do you actually remember it? Or did someone tell you?

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    2. I remember watching my brother walk away hand in hand with his girlfriend. I remember her name was Elaine. I remember the feeling of the water closing over my head and looking up to see the pool water do that prism thing it does. I remember announcing to my parents I could swim. The next day I walked over to the deep end and I jumped in and dog paddled around while my mother screamed bloody murder. I had no fear and did fine. Real swimming lessons began immediately. Each of those memories is discrete. Like mental photographs.

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  6. Love this setup, JP. I'm hooked. Anyone who 'almost drowned' remembers, most vividly what it was like. I went to overnight camp camp for a month each summer, starting when I was 6. It was in Arizona near Flagstaff, and campers took an overnight train to get there. I did not love it when I was 6 (what were my parents thinking... never mind, I know what they were thinking) but by the time I was 15 I did.

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    1. I remember your story, Hallie! That’s so scary too...

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  7. Congrats on the new book J.P. Summer camp sure does lend itself to scary stories, no? I almost drowned once when I was a kid. We were at a beach and my foot got stuck in a hole on the floor of the water. Luckily someone was there and pulled me up quickly. But it didn't affect my love of the water.

    As for Hank's question, I went to two different summer camps. When I was in elementary school, my parents sent me to Cathedral Camp. It was a day summer camp. I don't remember much about it though so I can't remember if there was swimming

    When I was a teenager and in Boy Scouts (yes, believe it or not I was in Scouting), I went 3 years to Camp Cachalot with my troop. There was swimming there because you were not only at camp but working on merit badges during the week and swimming was one of them. I was a good swimmer. I'm good IN the water. Just don't put me on a boat ON the water. There's not enough Dramamine.


    I did enjoy my time at Scout camp. My dad was an assistant Scoutmaster so he was there and all the other troops knew him as "God". Seriously, they'd all see him and say, "Hey God!" which confused the hell out of their parents on Parents Day. Especially when my dad would reply, "Yes?".


    It was also the place where I learned just how powerful I could be when truly enraged. We had two troops in my town and we were rivals. Well, one of the kids in the other troop said something to me one day as the two troops passed each other by and I exploded and went after him. They tried to stop me but it wasn't until my entire troop was on top of me with me finally on the ground that they managed to keep me from "killing" the guy. You ever see a football player still running even though they have three or four guys trying to tackle him? It took 10 teenagers to put me down that day. No exaggeration.


    Ahhh summer camp memories...LOL. Oddly enough, that kid is now a cop. And I'm a lot mellower these days.

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    1. Wow Jay, that is quite the story! That’s a lot of boy power going on there— what happened after that?
      And amazing that you still know that kid!

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    2. Hank,

      The Scoutmaster of my troop came over got the kids off me and made me calm down before an attempt was made to find out what happened. I said what was said to me, the kid lied and denied he said it and that was pretty much it. They couldn't do anything because they couldn't prove it. Even though at least a couple of my fellow Scouts heard the guy. Other than that, the two troops wisely avoided each other for the rest of the week.

      He's a cop in my town so I know he exists but it's not like we are friends or anything.

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  8. The Drowning sounds like an absolutely gripping read. As for my, I never went to summer camp. Many friends did and spoke glowingly of the fun they had, and a few of the homesickness they suffered.

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    1. Absolutely two schools of thought on camp, no question about that…

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  9. Count me in as "hooked", JP. I love anything where "reality" is called into question!

    I went to two camps every summer. There was the day camp experience that served to keep me busy while my mother was at work. It was hosted by the local parks and recreation and there was swimming at the pool. Then, one week every summer there was sleep away camp on Balboa Island with swimming right at the front door. As I grew older there were always trips to the beach with friends.

    I have always been a swimmer and I love the water however, I'm with Kait! I have had one encounter with the high dive. Never again!

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    1. Oh, the high dive! So scary! You just cannot look down, right? It is so much higher when you are standing on the diving board, because your eyes are 5 feet higher even than the board is.

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  10. Y camp on Lake Nichecronk in Dingman's Ferry, PA. I was nine, earnestly treading water in a roped off area of the lake. "If you want to graduate to Shark, you have to find my whistle!" The counselor took off her white lanyard and pitched it in the water. With one last, longing look at the deep water raft in the Shark section, I did a surface dive and searched through the green weeds on the mud lake bottom. I found the lanyard and emerged, triumphant. Next summer I would be a Shark, one of the big girls diving off the raft! In later years, I mastered a swamped canoe and made the yearly 1.5 mile swim down to boys' camp.

    We had a buddy system with our name on a round cardboard tag hanging on a board by the dock. The counselors were very strict about moving our tag on and off the "lake" portion of the board. We swam twice a day and on Sundays, went skinny-dipping in the lake with Ivory soap (it floats) and Breck shampoo.

    In retrospect, it would have been easy to lose a camper in the lake or woods. But it never happened.

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    1. Oh, there is nothing like the incentive to be a shark! That is an adorable story.
      End it is pretty interesting, as JP will discuss, how much responsibility is giving two teenagers. Having a bunch of kids and a lake is a deadly combination.
      We had a buddy system too! I have not thought about that for years…

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  11. I never went to summer camp but my college had just built a new state of the art pool and so everyone was required to learn. I eventually was able to do the required laps but I can't imagine anyone would say that I was actually swimming.
    JP, your novel sounds so exciting; I can not wait to read it! But I wish someone would explain to me the definition of a thriller. I recently read a book with that on the cover and I have to say I wasn't the least bit thrilled with that story. Then I sorta came to the conclusion it involves high speed chases and guns. I realize that psychological thrillers are something else entirely. Not sure why we even use those labels - a good book is a good book!

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    1. Oh what a good question! I usually think a mystery is who done it, you know? Someone gets killed, and the sleuth is trying to solve that puzzle.
      In a thriller, something bad is going to happen, and the good guys have to prevent it from happening. And there are often very high stakes and a ticking clock…
      In a psychological thriller, the stakes are high, but are often much more personal. And the weapons are deceit and manipulation and gaslighting.
      But I agree, what marketers label a book can be perplexing!

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    2. The Drowning would qualify as a psychological thriller.

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    3. Judi--you win! YAAAYYYYY! email me your address---to hryan at whdh dot com

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  12. The Drowning sounds captivating. I went to summer camp every summer for many years. The first time for 3 weeks which I loved. The camp was rustic and had a pool which was total concrete and cold but we had to swim daily. The camp was up north in the Laurentians where many summer camps wee located. The next summer I went for 6 weeks. Another year I went to a riding camp in the Eastern Townships, met girls who came from as far as Ontario and corresponded with them. Summer camp is an experience which is memorable and every child should experience this wonder.

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    1. I’m so pleased you had such a great time! I was not the happiest of campers, I must say… I do remember singing and lanyard making. But I never liked getting dirty :-) I also love it when we got to have sloppy Joe’s and popcorn for dinner! And did you have a bug juice?

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  13. Your book sounds fascinating, JP. Interestingly enough, I recently read a book about a child who drowned. When I got to the end and read the author's note, she mentioned how it was based on her own sister's drowning. Very sad. Luckily I have no personal experience with anything remotely related.

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    1. Oh so awful... we have a swimming pool in our backyard, and when kids are in it I am riveted to it.

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  14. The Drowning sounds unique and riveting. I did go to summer camp and met lifelong friends. We trusted the counselors and depended on them even though they probably were immature and too young to cope with children's problems away from home. I enjoyed being away from home in the heat of summer and thought that the activities were great. We swam in a lake which was sectioned off and safe so there were no safety concerns. I sent my sons to summer camp in upstate New York which they benefited from greatly and then one in Ontario, North of Toronto. They remember the summers fondly as do I.

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    1. Perfect! And yes, so amazing how cool all the counselors seem to be!

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  15. I'm having difficulty posting replies here, so let me try posting this, and, if it works, I'll jump back in to the discussion.

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  16. Shalom Reds and fans. I went to camp for two weeks in the summer for several years consecutively as a pre-teen. There were programmed activities all day long. I remember a drawing class that I loved and excelled at. We put on a version of The King and I. My dad sent me letters with newspaper clippings for the whole time I was there. It was a mildly religious Jewish camp so Friday nights were somewhat special and we sang all sorts of camp songs. There was a lake and a roped off area for swimming. Up until then my father, who was deathly afraid of deep water, had tried to teach me holding me trying to do a back float or a dead man’s float. One day at camp, I found for myself a secluded part of the roped in area and after 20 minutes of trying by myself, I succeeded in doing a dead man’s float. I was giddy with my achievement and soon could do a version of a crawl although I hadn’t mastered breathing as I swam. From there I learned to tread water and I was off and running.
    Back at home, we lived close to the seashore in New York City so I did a lot of swimming in the ocean. I haven’t swam much as an adult and I think I would be leary of the ocean or a river but I am hoping to join our local YMCA and use their several pools. I like mysteries. I like thrillers. Many psychological thrillers hit a little too close to home for me. Violence and gore, I sometimes have to take a break from and put the book down for a spell.

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    1. That’s one thing I love about psychological thrillers… They don’t have to be violent or glory. It’s all mind games.

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  17. Here's a tale of a camper who actually did disappear. In my last camp, Camp Lenox, in Otis, Massachusetts (yes, Otis, and you'll recognize that name in the book, as it was there we heard about John Otis) there was a kid my age who was very funny and a bit mad, and also did Elvis impersonations. One day he wasn't there, and later on he reappeared doing Elvis impressions on Saturday Night Live. He was Andy Kaufman.

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    1. Oh my goodness, that is chilling. Absolutely chilling. So pleased you could be here today! Your book is incredibly special.

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    2. Andy only disappeared because he got homesick.

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    3. Andy Kaufman! Such a cool connection.

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  18. Just looked up the rates at the camp my parents wanted to send me too but I refused. Camp Lake Hubert in Minnesota. $9K plus for 8 weeks. Seriously? I know it was far cheaper when I was a child, but then hamburger was 10 cents a pound too. It's all relative.

    I can't remember being unable to swim, and I took diving in college, then synchronized swimming. Now I go to the JCC for weekly water exercise, which I call old ladies' water ballet. I found out that almost everyone in my class also did synchronized swimming in her youth. Interesting isn't it.

    Funny drowning story: Decades ago my then partner and I had an inground pool in Kansas. It was round and had a solar cover. One cold spring day we decided to ready the pool for summer, clean and fill and play chemistry set and all that. When done, we each grabbed one side of the cover and started to place it over the pool. My partner was about Hank's size. That Kansas wind, thing Wizard of Oz, picked up the cover and picked up my partner and dropped her in the middle of the icy water. Parka and all. She didn't drown, and somehow we managed to get her out, but I'm still laughing at the sight.

    Now I'm off to Amazon to check out your new book J.P. Kudos

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    1. You hardly ever hear the phrase "funny drowning story," you know? xoxoxoxo

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  19. Count me hooked by this story, I'll have to read The Drowning.
    Never went to summer camp as a child. But as my father's brother had drowned when he was a young boy, our parents brought us to learn to swim at the municipal pool when we were babies. I was too young to remember but I've always known hiow to swim.
    Don't put me in the draw, I'm from Quebec

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    1. Danielle, oh gosh, that's so haunting... Wise parents, though... xoxo

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  20. I want to know what happened to the author's camp counselor! What a jerk!!!
    I went to a scout camp. They had three ducks that hung out at the lake by the dining hall. They were called Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner!

    Libby Dodd

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    1. That is so cute, Libby Dodd! oxoxo You know how I feel about ducks. <3 And yes, I really want to hear, too. xo

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    2. I have no idea what happened to the counselor. But, if he’s still alive, he’d be in his eighties.

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  21. JP, your book sounds like quite the page turner! I almost drowned when I was five and fell through the ice of a small pond, luckily my brother was able to pull me out. I did learn to swim after that but have always had a horrible fear of deep dark water ever since. I know exactly the terror you describe and wish I could travel back in time and spare you the near drowning and punch that swim coach/counselor right in the throat. Can't wait to read this book!

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    1. Yeah, don't we all want to gang up on that guy? Yeesh. And oh, Jenn, poor little thing. Aw.

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    2. Thanks, Jenn, but at least I got a book out of it!

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  22. Oh, I have to read this book! Summer camps are accidents and misery waiting to happen. Maybe I've watched too many summer camp horror movies. Seriously though, summer camps seem to me to either be something kids are enthusiastically excited about or miserably dreading (note Andy Kaufman's homesickness). I only attended one summer camp as a kid, after 5th grade. There were friends of mine going, so I was excited. I ended up being terribly homesick, but able to get through a week. And, of course, the camp was on a lake, and I wasn't a good swimmer, and I was terrified of lake water and its depth and darkness. It ended up with me getting cramps in my legs in the water and being helped to the dock ladder by a couple of friends. No lake swimming for me. No thank you very much.

    I didn't have my drowning experience until I was in my early 20s and married. My husband and I were in Hawaii, Waikiki Beach, Honolulu. I feel the same way about ocean water as I do lake water. I don't like not being able to see what's under there, and I avoid water over my head like the plague. Well, my husband managed to talk me into going out farther than where I was comfortable because we had rafts. Then, his raft blew away and he wanted to go after it. Unfortunately, it was faster for him to go after his raft using my raft to aid him. I was in water that was up to my shoulders, and he told me to just stay put and he'd be right back. Uh, well, did I mention I don't like not knowing what is swimming around under the water that I can't see? Of course, I decided to move and swim in (again, not a great swimmer)closer to shore. And, of course, I swam crooked, stopped to put my feet down and discovered too late the water was over my head. Panic ensued. I swallowed some water, but was able to scream for help. A couple, probably middle aged, nearby with an inner tube came over and told me to hang onto it. Husband had heard me and was there quickly, too. He took over the rescue. I turned to thank the couple, but they were gone. Absolutely, without a trace, gone. I consider that my second encounter with angels.

    JP, I can't wait to read The Drowning and relive a fear or two.

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  23. SO scary. And whoa. What an experience...the ocean is so vast. And angels, huh? Could be... (What happened to the inner tube?)

    And yes, I am not fond of the yucky bottoms of lakes.

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  24. This sounds like a satisfying tale of revenge. Maybe? I learned to swim at community swimming pools as a kid. My parents signed us up every summer for Red Cross swimming classes. I also had them at scout camp, although one summer I didn't earn a badge. The swimming instructor was really cranky and yelled something about stay out of the way if you don't want to work. I and several girls took her up on it. My first overnight camp was a church camp on Galveston Bay. I was homesick for my big brother the whole time (a week). It was a coed camp too which I thought was unusual. Then I went to a Camp Fire Girl camp. We rode the train from Houston to either Temple or a stop nearby, McGregor. That was also one week. I just remember it being hotter than hell and their encouraging us to take salt tablets. I did spend several summers at Girl Scout camp in east Texas. Imagine heat and pines, snakes and mosquitoes for two weeks. They had a lake for canoeing and a swimming pool for swimming. I usually went with a friend, but didn't seem to fit in with our tentmates as easily as whoever I went with. So my track record was being there but not completely being there! I must have enjoyed it enough though to keep going back.

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    1. Scout camp! Oh gosh, a rite of passage so many of us share… two weeks of snakes and mosquitoes. Yuck. There should be a badge for perseverance.

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  25. As a fan of metafiction, I love the idea of the story-within-the-story, the documentary maker serving as a counterpoint to the "official" story laid out by the author. It always intrigues me to feel a little unsteady on my feet when I'm reading something.

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  26. This book sounds amazing and I can't wait to read it! My camps were mostly day camps and there was swimming, but in pools (I grew up in the city). However, I love stories set at camps where there is a lake. My imagination immediately starts to go and I can't wait to be drawn into a story. I'm looking forward to The Drowning!

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    1. So agree! And so funny how instantly sinister it is, you know? Or maybe that’s just us :-) xxx

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  27. Just thought I'd jump in—though I'm still here—and thank everyone who has written in, either with a question or about their experiences, and I'm glad everyone survived! I very much appreciate your interest in The Drowning, and hope you find it as satisfactory to read as I found it fun to write!

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    1. It’s a completely terrific book at! Absolutely riveting. Cannot wait for everyone else to read it!

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    2. Thank you so much, Hank! And thank you for being here throughout the day. It's been great fun hearing from future readers.

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    3. It's a pleasure hosting you--any time!

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  28. Hi! I went to Science Camp and 4-H Camp in junior high and then I was a Scout leader for Cub Scout camps! Thanks for the chance to win this book. It is cold and rainy here in Northern CA! lindaherold999(at)gmail(dot)com

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    1. such fun! And you are a rock star for being a troop leader!

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  29. Geez, I wouldn't be a happy camper, either. I was a little older than my peers when I learned to swim. I learned at a nearby community pool. I never did get over my fear of diving head first. I panic. I've always jumped in feet first so that I can see where I was going and I knew to swim upwards. I want to read this story and find out how it ends. It's cold and rainy here in Northern California, but I'm not complaining. We need it. bluedawn95864 at gmail dot com

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    1. Yes, that first dive is always a big moment! It's so--counterintuitive!

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