When Magdalena learns that her younger sister has disappeared, she does not immediately panic. A free-spirit, Jadranka has always been prone to mysterious absences and she has never seen a future on Rosmarina, the isolated Croatian island where their family has lived for generations. But when weeks pass with no word, Magdalena leaves behind her Adriatic home and sets off to New York to find her sister. Magdalena's search begins to unspool the dark history of their family: from the brother and sister who fought as partisans during WWII, at a terrible price; to their children, forced to make devastating choices under the pall of the Soviet era; to their children, the sisters at the center of the novel, who carry the family's secrets in their blood. A haunting and sure-footed debut, THE FIRST RULE OF SWIMMING explores the legacy of betrayal and persecution in a place where beauty is fused inextricably with hardship, where nonconformity - especially by women - is stifled by cultural taboo, and where the lure of leaving is countered by the summons of family and home.
