The Night Swimmers Quotes

it brings to life summers when kids disappeared for days at a time, when there were no planned activities, and each day held its own possibilities.

After their mother passes away, Retta, Johnny, and Roy don’t have much parenting in their lives. Their dad is a country singer who keeps them well fed but isn’t around much. Older sister Retta takes control, leading her brothers on all sorts of unwise adventures and promising that one day they’ll have money, safety, and a nice home.

That pool gave the night swimmers a feeling of belonging and happiness, even though the pool didn’t belong to them, it made them feel good pretending. Reality was not as good as the life they pretended when they went out at night. Retta, Roy, and Johnny are the new kids in town. Their father doesn’t spend much time with them, he is usually at a club at night, there he sings his country music.

Retta is in charge of her two little brothers since her mom died. Her dad sleeps in and writes songs after working nights. School is out and she takes them to swim in a neighbor’s fancy pool. She’s determined that they experience things.

He thinks they are at the pool and he is determined to fearlessly cannonball into the pool and make a big loud splash that would wake the Colonel and he would be running ahead and lead them home and they would admire him and he would be in charge for the first time ever. That was what he hoped for anyway, but instead, he finds they aren’t there and the Colonel busts him and takes him home.

The kids spend their nights at the Colonel’s pool, the neighbors disapprove of their family for this among other things, which doesn’t’ make a new family feel better at all. Their mother died and with her, the normalcy of their family died. Retta, the eldest, has tried her best to replace their mother, but Johnny, the middle child, is fed up with Retta.

Retta, the eldest, has tried her best to replace their mother, but Johnny, the middle child, is fed up with Retta. He refuses to let her have any control over him. Desperate to try be a mother to him, she follows him one night when he slips out to be with a friend. She scolds him, but his friend sticks up for him, she can’t help be angry at both of them. Roy, who was left at home, is upset because he was left out of some “secret operation”.

Retta, the responsible older sister trying to replace mom, frustrated by the lack of appreciation for her efforts and is hurt by the lack of loyalty from her brothers. Johnny, the pre-teen experiencing a need for rebellion and independence. He’s trying to make a splash because of the lack of attention he gets and how fed up he is with being told what to do.

Johnny is relishing the annoyance he causes in his older sister and his younger brother. Roy is the young, stupid, naïve little kid. He always gave into his sister, loving her especially when she was like one of those “stern grocery store moms”. He gets frustrated when being left out because he seems like a young little pest. He is upset by the constant loss of the magic and happiness that was once in his life.

When Retta and Johnny get home, their father, Roy, the Colonel, and their father’s sweet, maternal, girlfriend is there. They all get a wake up call, they all realize each other’s, and their own imperfections. In the end, Brendelle, the girlfriend, points the family in the direction of improvement, and will hopefully come to replace their mother.