Kim Fairley’s New Memoir

Swimming for My Life: Authentic & Absorbing

I first met memoirist Kim Fairley on a Zoom screen nearly two years ago. As newbie authors, we had joined a private Facebook group set up by our publisher, She Writes Press. In that space, I realized that Kim and I had a lot in common. About the same age and hailing from the Midwest, we were both launching our first books on the heels of a pandemic. We clicked right away and quickly linked up with two other memoirists to form a weekly writing group. When Kim’s book about her May-to-December marriage, Shooting Out the Lights, released in the fall of 2021, I interviewed her for my weekly blog (revisit that conversation here).

This past summer, I drove to Ann Arbor and met up with Kim for breakfast. Since we had never met in-person, I was eager to make the nearly three-hour drive. Over eggs and OJ, we chatted easily about our writing projects, motherhood, our marriages to older men, widowhood, and her new book about competitive swimming during the early days of Title IX. 

When the waitress brought the check, Kim reached into her tote, pulling out an early copy of her new memoir, Swimming for My Life. She signed it for me and then we corralled the waitress to capture the moment on our iPhones. I returned home and couldn’t wait to dive in (excuse the swimming pun) to Kim’s book. In our writing group, I’d been privileged to read and discuss several chapters with her. I was eager to learn how those early passages fit in with the overall story arc. 

Much like Kim’s first book, Shooting Out the Lights, in Swimming for My Life she writes with stunning candor, revealing personal challenges and crises with skill and engrossing detail. What I admire most about Fairley’s writing is her ability to share her successes and vulnerabilities while putting them in context with a larger world view.

Kim Fairley grew up Cincinnati as the oldest of four siblings. Her parents thrust she and her siblings into the competitive swimming arena to keep them busy while the couple launched a business. When Kim was eleven, her parents began leaving the kids at home with a sitter while they traveled the Midwest and sold imported wooden ornaments from their motorhome. This behavior became a pattern: Mom and Dad leaving for weeks at a time while the kids wrestled with life’s emergencies on their own. 

As Kim coped in the role of fill-in mother while dealing with the stresses of elite swimming, she struggled to shape her own life. She eventually found strength, competence, and achievement through swimming–and became the second female swimmer to win a full ride to the University of Southern California where she earned two national titles. 

Swimming for My Life is a tale of family bonds, as much as it is a peek into the dark side of elite swimming. As in her other work, Kim Fairley shows how it is possible to examine one’s life honestly, reconcile with the past, and emerge whole. Fairley’s writing is authentic. Her story is absorbing. This book is a jewel. Place it at the top of your fall reading list.

Follow Kim Fairley here.

Swimming for My Life  is available wherever books are sold. The author will be discussing her book virtually on October 20th at 7PM ET. Tickets are available through Eventbrite.

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