At once a travel book, autobiographical novel, memoir and historical survey, News of the Swimmer Reaches Shore begins with its narrator suspended in the salty, buoyant waters of the Mediterranean and develops into a discursive essay on family life, love and deep sea diving. Not only is the book a paean to the south of France, it is a history of things that explode under water, taking the reader by way of the trenches of World War One and the Rainbow Warrior bombing to the writer's experiences of diving off Menton. Adrift on an ocean of art history, literature and music, the book introduces a cast of underwater characters including Jacques Cousteau, Dominique Prieur, Henri Matisse and the naked river-swimming Mother Aubert, a 19th century nun who presents something of a role-model for the narrator as he negotiates various streams of thought.