The Night Swim: A Novel by Megan Goldin

A special thank you to Edelweiss, NetGalley, Macmillan, and St. Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you also to St. Martin's Publicity Group for the opportunity to be a part of the Blog Tour.

What is the price of a reputation?

Rachel Krall is a household name thanks to her true crime podcast, Guilty or Not Guilty. She is used to being recognized by her voice so when she finds a note addressed to her on her windshield, begging for her help, Rachel can't help but feel uneasy.

Season Three of her show takes Rachel to Neapolis, a small town that is divided by a devastating rape trial. The town's golden boy—a swimmer on pace to qualify for the Olympics—is on trial for raping the police chief's granddaughter. Rachel immerses herself into the case by conducting interviews and her own investigation for the podcast. But she still keeps finding more letters in the most unexpected places. She is being relentlessly followed by someone that wants Rachel to look into what happened to her sister twenty-five years earlier. On record, Jenny Sills drowned, but whoever is behind the letters is convinced that it was murder. Rachel starts poking around and asking questions, yet nobody wants to answer them. With the two cases looking more and more similar, the past and present collide in a shocking twist to reveal what really happened to Jenny.

In Goldin's newest thriller, she examines whether or not past wrongs can be put right. Using an epistolary narrative style, the story unfolds through podcasts and letters as well as the actual trial. For the most part, this is effective, but there are times where it felt bogged down.

At times The Night Swim is a heavy book, especially with the sensitive topic of rape and Goldin handles it with the utmost care. The trial scenes are not for the faint of heart—they are an accurate and necessary comment on victim shaming. This book is raw, it is real, and it is harrowing. What it is not, is a thriller—it is a slow burn mystery with legal undertones.

Deftly plotted and well-sculpted, this is a solid sophomore effort from Megan Goldin.

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MEGAN GOLDIN worked as a correspondent for Reuters and other media outlets where she
covered war, peace, international terrorism and financial meltdowns in the Middle East and Asia.

She is now based in Melbourne, Australia where she raises three sons and is a foster mum to
Labrador puppies learning to be guide dogs.

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Q&A with Megan Goldin

Your previous novel, The Escape Room, was set in the world of Wall Street high stakes investment banking. How did you decide to set your next book in a seaside resort community?  

For me, part of the pleasure of writing is to explore characters, places, issues and even writing styles. When I finished writing The Escape Room, I was interested in expanding my horizons as a writer rather than embarking on a new novel that would  tread similar ground to The Escape Room. I'd been reading about several sexual assault cases going through the courts and I was interested in exploring some of the issues in my fiction. Not just about sexual assault itself but about the judicial process and the effects of it on families. As for my choice of location, my process is that I sit down and start writing, and let the story unravel in a very organic way. So when I started writing The Night Swim, the setting sort of chose itself!

Rachel, the main character in The Night Swim, hosts a true crime podcast.  Are you a fan of those types of podcasts yourself?  Why do you think they're so popular these days? 

I love podcasts and I listen to them often, while exercising, cooking and driving. Of course among the podcasts that I enjoy most are true crime podcasts although I also enjoy history podcasts and current affairs podcasts as well. True crime podcasts are popular because people are fascinated by the dark side of human nature. Like many podcast listeners, I became a fan after listening to Serial. I quickly became addicted to other podcasts as well. The biggest problem right now with true crime podcasts, and podcasts in general, is that there are so many fantastic ones around. I wish I had more time to listen to them all.

What made you decide to write the book from a dual point of view?  Did that make it easier or more challenging to explore the parallel storylines? 

It's actually quite challenging writing from multiple points-of-view as each narrative has its own 'voice' and style  so it's quite a complicated process. I often start my writing day by spending the first couple of hours just reading back on the previous chapters of that particular point-of-view so that I can get the 'voice' back of the character before I start writing.

Are courtroom scenes difficult to write?  How do you keep the energy or tension up? 

I've read novels and watched movies with terrific courtroom scenes over the years. When done well, powerful courtroom scenes are among the most memorable scenes in films and books. So I have to admit that I rubbed my hands with glee when I had the opportunity to write the courtroom chapters. It's almost as if I'd been working towards writing those chapters my entire life!

The tight-knit town in the story is torn apart over charges that the town's "golden boy" brutally attacked a young woman.  Were there any real-life cases you drew from to tell this story? 

There wasn't any specific cases that I based the novel on but there were many sexual assault cases that had been in the news over the years that I had read about. Many of them left a deep impression. When I started writing The Night Swim, I went back and read courtroom transcripts from some of these cases as well as other cases that came up in my research. I also read, watched and spoke with as many people as I could in order to get an insider view of what happens when these cases are brought to court.

The parallel storyline involves someone (Hannah) leaving mysterious notes for Rachel, begging her to investigate their sister's death from decades ago.  Why was their approach so secretive, and at first, vaguely threatening? 

Hannah had a traumatic childhood because of what happened to her mother and sister. She never really recovered from those childhood traumas so she was understandably wary about whether her story would be taken seriously. She was a fan of Rachel's podcast and she truly believed that Rachel would get justice for her sister if she only knew what had happened, but she also knew that she needed to find a way to connect with Rachel and get her attention. Following Rachel, and leaving messages for her was her way of connecting. Hannah was so focused on getting to the truth about what happened to her sister that she didn't realize that it might be perceived as threatening.

The Night Swim looks at how sexual assault victims who come forward often face an equally traumatic ordeal with the investigation and publicity. How did you portray this with sympathy and care, while still keeping the pages turning? 

I tend to put myself in my characters shoes when I write so I found it emotionally gruelling to write some of the chapters related to sexual assault in The Night Swim. I felt an enormous obligation to be as accurate as possible about what sexual assault survivors and their families go through. So I did as much research as possible and wrote, rewrote, edited and re-edited those scenes many times over. I did my very best to write it with the respect and sympathy that the subject matter deserves as it's a truly harrowing trauma that affects people for the rest of their lives.

A nightingale makes regular appearances throughout the book.  Are you a bird lover yourself?  What made you include that in the story? 

As part of my research, I'd read about the Greek myth of Philomela. She was raped and then silenced when her tongue was cut out and eventually turned into a nightingale. There are various interpretations of the story but some suggest that the silencing of Philomela symbolises the silencing of women over the centuries. So that's how the nightingale found its way into the book. As for whether I'm a bird lover: I'm living in Australia right now and we have magnificent wild parrots and rainbow lorikeets which are the most stunning rainbow colored birds that live in the trees by my house. We're currently locked down due to coronavirus so it's somewhat liberating watching the beautiful Australian birds fly around freely even if we are stuck at home.

I hear you just got a new puppy to help you and your family get through the lockdown in Melbourne.  Tell us about her! 

I jokingly call her our lockdown puppy but in truth we'd been thinking of getting a puppy for a long time. She is a Labrador puppy and we were lucky to get her because in Australia there is such a demand for dogs right now that there are few rescue dogs available and pedigree breeders have multi-year waiting lists. My beloved Lab cross died of cancer a few years ago and I'd been waiting until my kids were old enough to get a new puppy. I volunteer to care for temporary guide dog puppies so our new puppy was always going to be a Lab of some description. They are beautifully natured dogs although they spend the first year tearing the house apart as they chew everything in sight. My last Lab ate books from cover to cover. With the pressures of the lockdown and the effect it has on kids, it's a welcome distraction for my kids to have a puppy to help raise.

The Escape Room by Megan Goldin

A special thank you to Edelweiss, NetGalley, Macmillan, and St. Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you also to St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to be a part of the Blog Tour.

Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam are high-rollers in the world of finance. They are relentless in their pursuits and are masters of their craft and their lavish lifestyles are proof of their successes. But this life of luxury comes at a great cost—a grueling schedule and oftentimes unrealistic expectations and deadlines.

The four are called in for an after-hours meeting on a Friday night. Given the out-of-the way location, and their recent failure to close on too many lucrative deals, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam fear that they've been summons as a result of their poor performance and that they are going to be made redundant. Vincent informs them that they are actually there to participate in an escape room challenge. Agreeing that it is smart to be on their best behaviour before bonus day, and their competitive personalities getting the best of them, they pile into the elevator. But when the doors shut and they are plunged into darkness, it quickly becomes apparent that they are trapped.

Welcome to the escape room. Your goal is simple. Get out alive.

What starts off as a game turns into survival. Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam need to put aside their differences and work together to solve clues in order to be freed. But when the game reveals the secrets they've been hiding from one another, they realize that the terrible things they've done to get them where they are come at a high price. The final puzzle: which one of them will kill in order to survive?

Goldin's debut is a stomach-dropping ride. Alternating between past and present, the cast of characters are completely ruthless and will stop at nothing to succeed. They are fuelled by the rush that comes with making high-profile deals and will do anything that the company asks of them. Despite the unlikeable characters, or in spite of them, this story is totally compelling.

There are a few times where the reader has to suspend their disbelief, and in this case I'm willing to overlook it because it was so enthralling! Also, there were pockets in the narrative where it got repetitive and a touch (dare I say) predictable. But because it was so entertaining, I was completely captivated.

Whether it is a commentary on corporate finance, or greed itself, the writing is clever and razor-sharp and I can't wait for more from Megan Goldin.

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MEGAN GOLDIN worked as a correspondent for Reuters and other media outlets where she
covered war, peace, international terrorism and financial meltdowns in the Middle East and Asia.

She is now based in Melbourne, Australia where she raises three sons and is a foster mum to
Labrador puppies learning to be guide dogs.

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Q & A With Megan Golden

How did you become inspired to write The Escape Room?

There were a number of inspirations that led to me writing The Escape Room. First of all, I’d had
my third baby and, for the first time since my working life began, I'd taken a year or so out of the
workforce to be with him. When I started looking to go back to work, I interviewed for a job for
which I should have been a serious candidate as my experience closely matched the job
description and I'd done something similar before for a similar company. Instead, the interviewer
ate snack food throughout the interview with, let's just say, very bad table manners. He crunched
particularly loudly every time that I spoke. I drew on this experience when I wrote about the job
interview from hell that Sara Hall went through in The Escape Room. It made me feel powerless.
I told friends about what happened and they shared with me their own horror stories in the
workplace. It made me want to explore sexism in the workplace in my next novel. It also
inspired the idea of a revenge theme. I liked the idea of someone who is beaten down by the
system making a comeback.

Around that time I was also stuck in an elevator. I’d gone shopping with my kids. I had a cart full
of food. The elevator stopped and the lights went off. It took a couple of minutes until we were
able to get out but it was a dark, cold, and frightening couple of minutes in that elevator. I’d been
thinking about a setting for this thriller revenge story that I had in mind. It struck me that the
elevator was a perfect setting. I was fired up by the challenge of setting a novel in an elevator. It
also served my purpose well. I wanted to put my characters in a pressure-cooker atmosphere
where animosity would build as they learned each other’s secrets. An elevator was perfect.

What was your research process like when writing about the financial industry in the
U.S?

When I research my books, I apply journalism skills acquired over the years. That means
immersing myself in whatever information I can get ahold of. I read books, newspaper articles,
elevator manuals, and even journal studies on human psychology. I also followed forums for
investment bankers and others working in the financial industry and some of their social media
feeds. I spoke with people who worked in the world of finance and also drew on material that I’d
collected in the past. For example, there were big name investment banks in my previous office
building and I’d often overhear bankers and brokers chatting in the elevator about their personal
lives and work, or in my condominium building where many of them lived. I tend to write and
research at the same time as I don’t plan my novels other than the story arc. As the story evolves
on the pages while I write, I’ll stop writing for a few hours and branch out to research whatever
might be relevant for the novel. In the case of The Escape Room, that included issues such as
‘game theory’ and things as mundane as technical manuals about elevator safety mechanisms
and issues related to guns and ballistics. The research is one of the fun parts of writing a novel. I
get to learn new things and it breaks up the intensity of writing.

Are there any authors that you most look up to?

There is an endless list of authors, from crime and thriller writers, to literary fiction, classics, and
non-fiction. Now that I am writing myself, I tend to analyze other books as I read. I look at plot,
structure, character, voice, and various other writing techniques. Even as a journalist, I always
saw writing as a constant process of learning and refining. I think it’s a lifelong endeavor.
Among my favorites is John le Carre. I consider his novels master classes in suspense writing
and I often reread them. Yuval Noah Harari's series, starting with Sapiens, was another
inspiration behind The Escape Room, as I’d been reading it and watching Yarari's lectures on
Youtube. It made me look at office culture through a prism of evolutionary biology. Offices are a
modern-day human habit and the backbiting office politics is really a case of survival of the
fittest.

If The Escape Room was to become a movie, which actor or actress would you like to play
some of the roles?

Well, a close friend just suggested Bradley Cooper for Vincent! Or perhaps Colin Farrell, Ryan
Gosling or Jesse Eisenberg for Sam and Jules. As for actresses, maybe Jennifer Lawrence for
Sylvie, or Anne Hathaway or Margot Robbie for Sara Hall. Lucy could be Emily Blunt.

Do you have any upcoming projects you’re working on?

I am working on my next book. It's also a thriller and it addresses contemporary themes but it's
quite different from The Escape Room. I'm a little hesitant about how much to divulge at this
point until it's done.

Anything else you’d like to add?

I'm extremely touched by all the support and feedback that I've been getting from so many
bloggers and reviewers who are passionate about The Escape Room and who love the characters.
Thank you all so much.