
The Night Swimmer
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $15.56
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Hillary Huber
-
By:
-
Matt Bondurant
About this listen
Matt Bondurant’s novel The Wettest County in the World was a New York Times Editor’s Pick, one of the San Francisco Chronicle’s 50 Best Books of the Year, and is now a major motion picture. Bondurant has now delivered The Night Swimmer, an atmospheric tale infused with Hitchcockian suspense.
When Fred and Elly Bulkington arrive in a small town on the southern coast of Ireland from Vermont, having won a pub in a contest, they encounter a wild, strange land and the native resistance to outsiders. As Fred immerses himself in the life of a pub-owner, Elly takes the ferry out to a nearby island where she—to the disbelief of the locals—is consumed by her ritual of open water ocean swimming, pushing herself to the limits. Elly becomes enmeshed in the island’s troubles—the power struggles between an enigmatic goat herder and the family that has controlled the area for centuries—while Fred’s sanity wavers and their marriage begins to unravel. Filled with lush imagery of the Irish coast, crashing sea, rolling hills, and rich Irish lore, The Night Swimmer is a stunning novel that exposes the dark and unseen crevasses in the human heart.
©2011 AudioGO (P)2011 Matt BondurantListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Wettest County in the World, or Lawless
- A Novel Based on a True Story
- By: Matt Bondurant
- Narrated by: Erik Steele
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Bondurant Boys were a notorious gang of roughnecks and moonshiners who ran liquor through Franklin County during Prohibition and after. The brothers played a central role in a major conspiracy trial and its violent end. In 1935, Sherwood Anderson, working on a magazine story, finds himself driving along the dusty red roads trying to find the brothers and break the silence that shrouds Franklin County.
-
-
Just outstanding!
- By Rich on 08-18-12
By: Matt Bondurant
-
Travels with Charley in Search of America
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.
-
-
Gary Sinise is fantastic!
- By C. Wilson on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
Oleander City
- A Novel Based on a True Story
- By: Matt Bondurant
- Narrated by: Julia Atwood, Chris Henry Coffey
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The hurricane of 1900, America’s worst natural disaster, left the island city of Galveston in ruins. Thousands perished, including all 93 children at the Sisters of the Incarnate Word orphanage—except six-year-old Hester, who miraculously survived. Oleander City is the tale of this little girl and the volatile collision between the American Red Cross, the Ku Klux Klan, and one of the most famous boxing matches in American history.
-
-
Awesome book
- By Timothy S. Mountcastle on 06-29-22
By: Matt Bondurant
-
The Great Alone
- By: Kristin Hannah
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: He will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.
-
-
A Long, Hard Slog Through Endless Despair and Heartache
- By Morro Schreiber on 04-11-18
By: Kristin Hannah
-
Skeleton Crew
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Stephen King, Matthew Broderick, Michael C. Hall, and others
- Length: 22 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The master at his scarifying best! From heart-pounding terror to the eeriest of whimsy - tales from the outer limits of one of the greatest imaginations of our time! Trucks that punish and beautiful teen demons who seduce a young man to massacre; curses whose malevolence grows through the years; obscene presences and angels of grace - here, indeed, is a night-blooming bouquet of chills and thrills.
-
-
Excellent narrators for classic King collection
- By Sheryl McCallister on 04-07-20
By: Stephen King
-
Surface Tension
- Seychelle Sullivan, Book 1
- By: Christine Kling
- Narrated by: Rosemary Benson
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What would you do if you discovered a five million dollar superyacht unmanned and adrift, a trail of blood across the deck and a bikini-clad blonde with a knife in her back? That’s exactly what Florida salvage captain Seychelle Sullivan finds when she responds to a strange woman’s Mayday call. Worse, the missing skipper is Neal Garrett, her ex. But when she ties the salvaged yacht to the Coast Guard dock, the Fort Lauderdale detective zeroes in on her as a suspect and raises questions. Questions she can’t answer.
By: Christine Kling
-
The Wettest County in the World, or Lawless
- A Novel Based on a True Story
- By: Matt Bondurant
- Narrated by: Erik Steele
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Bondurant Boys were a notorious gang of roughnecks and moonshiners who ran liquor through Franklin County during Prohibition and after. The brothers played a central role in a major conspiracy trial and its violent end. In 1935, Sherwood Anderson, working on a magazine story, finds himself driving along the dusty red roads trying to find the brothers and break the silence that shrouds Franklin County.
-
-
Just outstanding!
- By Rich on 08-18-12
By: Matt Bondurant
-
Travels with Charley in Search of America
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.
-
-
Gary Sinise is fantastic!
- By C. Wilson on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
Oleander City
- A Novel Based on a True Story
- By: Matt Bondurant
- Narrated by: Julia Atwood, Chris Henry Coffey
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The hurricane of 1900, America’s worst natural disaster, left the island city of Galveston in ruins. Thousands perished, including all 93 children at the Sisters of the Incarnate Word orphanage—except six-year-old Hester, who miraculously survived. Oleander City is the tale of this little girl and the volatile collision between the American Red Cross, the Ku Klux Klan, and one of the most famous boxing matches in American history.
-
-
Awesome book
- By Timothy S. Mountcastle on 06-29-22
By: Matt Bondurant
-
The Great Alone
- By: Kristin Hannah
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: He will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.
-
-
A Long, Hard Slog Through Endless Despair and Heartache
- By Morro Schreiber on 04-11-18
By: Kristin Hannah
-
Skeleton Crew
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Stephen King, Matthew Broderick, Michael C. Hall, and others
- Length: 22 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The master at his scarifying best! From heart-pounding terror to the eeriest of whimsy - tales from the outer limits of one of the greatest imaginations of our time! Trucks that punish and beautiful teen demons who seduce a young man to massacre; curses whose malevolence grows through the years; obscene presences and angels of grace - here, indeed, is a night-blooming bouquet of chills and thrills.
-
-
Excellent narrators for classic King collection
- By Sheryl McCallister on 04-07-20
By: Stephen King
-
Surface Tension
- Seychelle Sullivan, Book 1
- By: Christine Kling
- Narrated by: Rosemary Benson
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What would you do if you discovered a five million dollar superyacht unmanned and adrift, a trail of blood across the deck and a bikini-clad blonde with a knife in her back? That’s exactly what Florida salvage captain Seychelle Sullivan finds when she responds to a strange woman’s Mayday call. Worse, the missing skipper is Neal Garrett, her ex. But when she ties the salvaged yacht to the Coast Guard dock, the Fort Lauderdale detective zeroes in on her as a suspect and raises questions. Questions she can’t answer.
By: Christine Kling
-
Generation Loss
- By: Elizabeth Hand
- Narrated by: Carol Monda
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cass Neary made her name in the 70s as a photographer embedded in the burgeoning punk movement in New York City. Her pictures earned her a brief moment of fame. Thirty years later she is adrift, on her way down, and almost out when an old acquaintance sends her on a mercy gig to interview a famously reclusive photographer who lives on an island in Maine. When she arrives Down East, Cass stumbles across a decades-old mystery that is still claiming victims, and she finds one final shot at redemption.
-
-
My Favorite Novel
- By Jake Marley on 10-27-20
By: Elizabeth Hand
-
The Turning
- By: Tim Winton
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower, Caroline Lee
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here are turnings of all kinds - changes of heart, nasty surprises, slow awakenings, sudden detours - where people struggle against the terrible weight of the past and challenge the lives they have made for themselves. Beautifully crafted, and as tender as they are confronting, these elegiac stories examine the darkness and frailty of ordinary people and celebrate the moments when the light shines through.
-
-
It just got better and better
- By Karen Campbell on 03-02-12
By: Tim Winton
-
TransAtlantic
- A Novel
- By: Colum McCann
- Narrated by: Geraldine Hughes
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the National Book Award-winning Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann thrilled readers with a marvelous high-wire act of fiction that The New York Times Book Review called "an emotional tour de force". Now McCann demonstrates once again why he is one of the most acclaimed and essential authors of his generation with a soaring novel that spans continents, leaps centuries, and unites a cast of deftly rendered characters, both real and imagined.
-
-
Too breathtaking to read just once...
- By Annie M. on 06-18-13
By: Colum McCann
-
The Lightkeeper's Daughters
- A Novel
- By: Jean E. Pendziwol
- Narrated by: Dara Rosenberg, Dawn Harvey, Tom Parks
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though her mind is still sharp, Elizabeth's eyes have failed. No longer able to linger over her beloved books or gaze at the paintings that move her spirit, she fills the void with music and memories of her family, especially her beloved twin sister, Emily. When her late father's journals are discovered after an accident, the past suddenly becomes all too present. With the help of Morgan, a delinquent teenager performing community service at her senior home, Elizabeth goes through the diaries.
-
-
very good
- By Jason Burger on 09-17-17
-
Stories
- All-New Tales
- By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, Al Sarrantonio - editor, Joe Hill, and others
- Narrated by: Anne Bobby, Jonathan Davis, Katherine Kellgren, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.
-
-
Something for Everyone
- By Nicole on 05-24-17
By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, and others
-
The Shipping News
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At 36, Quoyle, a third-rate newspaperman, is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife gets her just desserts. He retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters all play a part in Quoyle's struggle to reclaim his life. As three generations of his family cobble up new lives, Quoyle confronts his private demons - and the unpredictable forces of nature and society - and begins to see the possibility of love without pain or misery.
-
-
Can't Explain Why I Love This Book
- By Polly on 03-06-12
By: Annie Proulx
-
Where the River Ends
- By: Charles Martin
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
He was a fishing guide and struggling artist from a south George trailer park. She was the beautiful only child of South Carolina's most powerful senator. Yet once Doss Michaels and Abigail Grace Coleman met by accident, they each felt they'd found their true soul mate.
-
-
Perfect Ending.
- By tooonce72 on 08-01-14
By: Charles Martin
-
Deep Water
- By: Emma Bamford
- Narrated by: Sophie Roberts, Daniel York Loh
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a Navy vessel comes across a yacht in distress in the middle of the vast Indian Ocean, Captain Danial Tengku orders his ship to rush to its aid. On board the yacht is a British couple: a horribly injured man, Jake, and his traumatized wife, Virginie, who breathlessly confesses, “It’s all my fault. I killed them.” Trembling with fear, she reveals their shocking story to Danial.
-
-
Misleading description and iffy narration
- By Glenn A. Douglas on 09-19-22
By: Emma Bamford
-
Casting Off
- By: Nicole R. Dickson
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a tiny island off the west coast of Ireland, the fishermen's handmade sweaters tell a story. Each one is unique - feelings stitched into rows, memories into patterns...It is here that Rebecca Moray comes to research a book on Irish knitting. With her daughter, Rowan, in tow, she hopes to lose herself into the history of the island and to forget her own haunting past. Before long, the warm embrace of the townsfolk wraps Rebecca and Rowan in a world of friendship, laughter, and love...
-
-
Great yarn...
- By Shewhee on 03-07-21
-
The Woman Who Married a Bear
- A Cecil Younger Investigation, Book 1
- By: John Straley
- Narrated by: David Chandler
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cecil Younger, local Alaskan investigator, is neither good at his job nor great at staying sober. When an old Tlingit woman, unimpressed by the police's investigation, hires him to discover why her son, a big-game guide, was murdered, he takes the case without much conviction that he'll discover anything new.
-
-
good story and good performance
- By Clifford K. on 11-01-20
By: John Straley
-
The Big Both Ways
- By: John Straley
- Narrated by: Barry Press
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Straley brings his storytelling abilities to a new level in this completely original period crime story. It's 1935, and Slip Wilson, rattled by the gruesome accidental death of a coworker, has quit his job at a logging camp, hoping to make a clean start in Seattle. But along the way he rescues a woman and her young niece from their car in a ditch, and his life takes a hard turn. The woman, Ellie Hobbes, is an anarchist with big dreams - but first, she has to take care of that pesky dead body in the trunk of her car.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Annie on 03-30-18
By: John Straley
-
A Death in Kitchawank, and Other Stories
- By: T. C. Boyle
- Narrated by: T. C. Boyle
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few authors write with such sheer love of story and language as T. C. Boyle, and that is nowhere more evident than in his inventive, wickedly funny, and always entertaining short stories. Here are 14 new tales previously unpublished in book form. By turns mythic and realistic, farcical and tragic, ironic and moving, Boyle's stories have mapped a wide range of human emotions. The stories here reflect his maturing themes.
-
-
Mixed Bag
- By AuntGert on 09-22-20
By: T. C. Boyle
What listeners say about The Night Swimmer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Pamela Harvey
- 01-16-12
Where is the story?
The audible blurb makes this book sound like a recipe for the perfect escape story - mysterious natural beauty, intrigue, a marriage "unraveling". But the novel disappoints. The characters are not fleshed out, the descriptions are way too long, and most of the writing is backstory. The reader keeps waiting for something to happen - we don't know what that "something" is, but we sense it's awful. I kept waiting for the story to begin.
I wish that the author was just a little bit less infatuated with his powers of description and had devoted more of this book to an actual story. The book moves at the pace of swimming - progressing ahead laboriously by tiny bits, and seen through murky waters.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- ALICE BROMLEY MCEWEN
- 03-27-12
A lot of interesting ideas but no payoff
This was my first experience with a Matt Bondurant book and he's not going on my "watch for new books" list, at least not with this effort.
An American couple move to an old Irish village when they win a pub in a contest. The wife, Ellie, connects with many of the villagers, and she hears all of these interesting things - stories - about goings on around this very old Irish Village, not to mention the strange things she starts to see.
A mysterious goat that roams the village on two legs and is watching over Ellie from a far? A strange lone form in the ocean, a lone seal or something else? A young naked child with long flowing blond hair climbing the outside of the abandoned lighthouse? Stories of the Lost Children with bits of bone and broken toys left for them? In the ocean Ellie feels movement below her and she can smell the strong choking smell of blood all around her... Ellie later hears a story about a ferry that went down several years ago with most all of the villages children on it and they died in the ocean near the lighthouse. On and on these interesting stories or happenings come up and then they never go anywhere or they're never even mentioned again.
They're the story I wanted to read, instead we get a story about a couple trying to make a go at a pub in an old Irish village. The husband loses himself, and drinks more than he serves, and the wife spends all of her time planning her swims and hanging around with men that are not her husband.
I enjoyed Hillary Huber, I've listened to several other books that shes read so the familiar voice was refreshing, I just wish the story was also.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful