I am a lifelong swimmer and sometimes writer.
For years I swam in the basement of the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco.
With all the time to think in the pool, every flip-turn at the wall was a bit like turning the page of a new idea or inspiration. But once I’d surface, something that was momentarily thrilling would vanish as soon as I stopped to look at the pool’s surrounding activity. Water aerobics. Lifeguards changing shifts. The constant ebb and flow of the lane lines for the next class.
When catching my breath, my eyes often landed on the kids’ swim lessons. I’d been pushing kids into waves for a few years with City Surf Project, and the instruction style was very similar. As was the magic that occurs when a young person is first terrified of the water and then triumphantly embraces it. Kids playing in the water is just the greatest.
An idea I kept coming back to was trying to take something so pure—a kid learning to swim—and combine it with something dark and complex—like weapons trafficking. Often, I hung on the wall, transfixed by the story concept of a swim coach acting as a reluctant bridge between these two worlds. Trying to be good but pulled into something bad. And how this tension of the two worlds would collide and resolve.
There was something there. Something I couldn’t erase out of my mind with a flip-turn. That’s why I wrote Bocas—to solve this artificial puzzle in my mind.
For inspiration, I grew up reading John Irving, and I loved how he’d plant the seed of a skill acquired early on and have it pay off later, like “The Shot” in a Prayer for Owen Meany. Our obsessions and paranoia can be irritating affectations, but they are also extremely helpful in keeping us alive and preparing us to be of service.
Thomas M Barron author of Bocas
Warm water, cold beers and no Shawna—life couldn’t be better on the island. Until George takes a little road trip to Colombia. Raúl, his boss at the bar, offered him a free ride. He always knew Raúl moved a little bit of cocaine. Who doesn’t? But guns?
Learn more about books by Thomas M Barron
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