Swim Home to the Vanished

A Novel

By: Brendan Shay Basham

Narrated by: Shaun Taylor-Corbett

Shortlisted for the Reading the West Book Award in the Debut Fiction

“Swim Home to the Vanished is a lush and fantastic journey through strange lands and minds from an incandescent new voice full of my kind of melancholic brilliance and unromantic magic.”—Tommy Orange, author of There, There

After the death of his brother, a grief-stricken young man seeks refuge and oblivion in a secluded fishing village dominated by a family of brujas in this haunting debut novel, inspired, in part, by the ramifications of Diné history and thought—a mesmerizing, original tale in the tradition of works by Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, and Gabriel García Márquez.

When the river swallowed Kai, Damien’s little brother didn’t die so much as vanish. As the unbearable loss settles deeper into his bones, Damien, a small-town line cook, walks away from everything he has ever known. Driving as far south as his old truck and his legs allow, he lands in a fishing village beyond the reach of his past where he hopes he can finally forget.

But the village has grief of its own. The same day that Damien arrives, a young woman from the community’s most powerful family is being laid to rest. A stranger in town, Damien is the object of gossip and suspicion, ignored by all except the dead girl’s mother, Ana Maria, who offers Damien a room and a job.

Grateful for her kindness, Damien soon begins to fall under Ana Maria's charismatic spell. But how long can he resist the rumors swirling through town suggesting she might have had something to do with her daughter’s death? Or deny his strange kinship with one of Ana Maria's surviving daughters, Marta, who knows too well the grief that follows the loss of a sibling—and who is driven by a fierce need for revenge? Swiftly, Damien finds himself caught in a power struggle between the brujas, a whirlwind battle that threatens to sweep the whole village out to sea.

Resonant with the Diné creation story and the unshakeable weight of the Long Walk—the forced removal of the Navajo from their land—Swim Home to the Vanished explores the human capacity for grief and redemption, and the lasting effects it has on the soul.

Confusing and kind of gross

While I appreciate that this story was very different, I didn’t understand the references to obscure lore. At one point I was eating while listening and had to pause the book because many of the descriptions were gross.

That being said, it’s cool that books like this are made and published. Some folks clearly appreciated it. Maybe I would have been amazed if I had the context to understand it. An authors preface may have helped.

No idea what was even happening - too artsy

So Damien is saddened by death and likens himself to a fish. Does he go to purgatory and all this stuff is not on earth? I had no idea what was going on. Seems like he is reincarnated as a fish, what did I just listen to?

A rambling

A rambling of nothingness that seems to go nowhere. The narrator does a good job but to me the story has no substance.

This is one weird tale!

this should be labeled as a fantasy. it is not taking place in the real world.

Weird but intriguing

Almost quit this story a couple of times. It was a story about a man dealing with his brother’s death. Was this all a dream? I still don’t know! HA! Very well narrated and that compelled me to keep listening.