Night Swimming in the Jordan is an Israeli-Anglo story of idealism, love and separation.
A coming of age, literary novel, it tells the story of Abbie, an Israeli Jewish girl living in an isolated Kibbutz community in the 1970s. A prolific diarist, Abbie increasingly questions her supposedly Utopian society, partly as a result of being groomed for sex by an older Community member. On the eve of her wedding she leaves for England and the highly contrasting world of Dartmoor in Devon. Years later her daughter Yasmin, born and bred on Dartmoor, has an unexpected visitor and we begin to find out why Abbie left her homeland.
The novel sheds light on a region which is frequently in the news, and yet is often difficult to understand. It explores the universal themes of war and displacement.
I have a passion for all-year-round outdoor swimming in the seas and rivers of England. This passion is shared by both Abbie and Yasmin, and is also reflected in the title of the book.