Synopsis:
Swallow (“Low”) Morrison is not an average teenager. That could be because of her hippie, polyamorous parents; or her stature (she is more than six feet tall); or because she has been raised in the dreary, isolated small town of Hawking on an island in the Pacific Northwest. Whatever the reasons, Low just doesn’t fit in with kids her own age.
Neither does Freya, an ethereal beauty and former social media influencer who now owns the local pottery studio.
When Low, a high school senior, first spots Freya, she is immediately intrigued. After signing up for a pottery class, Low falls under Freya’s spell. And Freya, buoyed by Low’s adoration, shares her darkest secrets and deepest desires with the girl. At last, both feel a sense of belonging . . . until Jamie walks through the studio door. Desperate to conceive and carry a baby to term, she and her author husband have just moved to the island, hoping that the healthy environment will result in pregnancy.
When Freya and Jamie become friends, as do their husbands, Low is left alone — and jealous.
One night the two couples have a drug-fueled party, and Freya suggests swapping partners. It should have been a harmless fling between consenting adults — one night of consensual debauchery they would leave in the past. Instead, it upends their lives and provides Low the perfect opportunity to unleash her growing resentment.
The Swap is a dark examination of the toxic relationships between two couples and the manipulative teenager with an explosive secret who is at the center of it all.
Review:
In Norse mythology, Freya is the goddess of fertility, as well as the most beautiful diety. In The Swap, Freya is the daughter of an Icelandic mother, and a sensual, beautiful artist who moves to the island with her husband, Maxime Beausoleil, after his career as a professional ice hockey player comes to a tragic and notorious end. So too does Freya’s lucrative and ego-feeding status as a social medial influencer. She loses the lucrative endorsement deals, luxurious trips, and free products she has become accustomed to receiving, as well as the adoration of her followers. Max is a large, brooding presence in the life to which Freya is now consigned — in a gorgeous, cedar-and-glass home situated on a rocky cliff above the sea.
Low lost at least one previous friendship as a result of questionable behavior. Since then, she has been a loner both at school and in her commune-like home, where she feels left out and ignored. Her parents have incorporated other partners into their unconventional marriage, and Low is mortified when she learns that her mother is pregnant with a third younger sibling. The island, with its rugged coastline boasting waterfront mansions, is a summertime escape for the wealthy, but is populated full-time by organic farmers, artisans, and locals employed in the hospitality industry. In the eclectic community, alternative lifestyles are accepted. Nonetheless, Low finds her parents’ lifestyle embarrassing.
One day at school, Low notices Freya speaking with the principal and placing a flyer on the bulletin board. She immediately sensed that Freya was “different. She exuded glamour, significance, and a palpable sense of cool.” Low quickly signs up to take pottery lessons from Freya.
Brian and Jamie Vincent have moved to the island for “a fresh start.” Jamie left her stressful marketing career to open a gift shop, and Brian sold a series of young adult fantasy novels, permitting him to leave his job as a teacher. They liquidated most of their assets, including a Seattle home and stock portfolio, to put their painful past behind them. Infertility has thus far rendered Jamie’s dream of carrying a baby impossible. When Freya brings her handmade bowls, vases, and platters to Jamie’s store, hoping she will stock them, the women strike up a friendship. Indeed, Freya becomes the only friend Jamie has on the island, and Freya convinces Jamie to give Low a part-time job in the store.
Low’s obsession with Freya manifests quickly. She becomes unreasonably jealous that Freya and Jamie have also commenced a friendship. She wants Freya to herself. One evening, as she lurks outside Freya and Max’s showcase home that boasts massive windows, she is able to observe the two couples’ activities. After Freya and Jamie share intimate secrets, Freya convinces her that the four of them should consume “‘shrooms.” Jamie agrees, even though she had a bad experience with mushrooms in college. But Brian is game, and Jamie is so desperate to maintain her friendship with Freya that she will do anything to win Freya’s approval and affection. Jamie has found Max attractive since meeting him, and becomes convinced that Brian and Freya are engaging in sexual activity, so she agrees to sleep with Max. She instantly regrets her decision.
That evening sets in motion a series of reactions and events that are the focus of a story inspired by author Robyn Harding’s awareness that some people with whom she is acquainted are “in open relationships.” That knowledge “piqued” her curiosity, causing her to wonder, “How would that work? Or, (more appropriately, for a thriller) how would that not work?” Although her characters only swap partners once, the ramifications are far-reaching and permanent. Harding employs multiple points of view to convey the details: alternating first-person narratives from Low, Jamie, Max, and Brian. Jamie and Brian relate the ways in which their relationship changes after that fateful night. Each harbors secrets from the other and experiences guilt, frustration, and anger, in part due to erroneous assumptions about the state of their marriage and each other’s desires. Jamie despairs that “there is no excuse for what I did that night with Freya’s husband. I told myself we were all consenting adults, mature enough to handle this. I told myself it would all be okay. But I was wrong.”
What happened that night would haunt us forever.
Low lurks in the pottery studio and the home Freya shares with Max, determined to be in Freya’s good graces and presence. Part of her preoccupation with Freya is incited by her exploration and discovery of her sexual orientation. She ponders whether she is in love with the much-older Freya. Low learns damaging secrets about Freya and Max, and is willing to use that information, if necessary, in order to stay close to Freya. Freya’s relationships with both women are on-again, off-again, with each reveling in the fact that, at least for the moment, she is Freya’s very best friend. Freya recognizes how insecure and needy both Jamie and Low are, and revels in using and manipulating them for her own purposes and gratification. Recognizing Low’s talent not just as a potter, but also as a photographer, Freya permits Low to serve as her unpaid personal photographer when she decides to resurrect her social media accounts in an attempt to repair her image and standing as an influencer. Low’s parents are not as indifferent as she believes, and they become concerned about the amount of time and effort that Low is devoting to Freya. And the one friend she makes at school, a young man named Thompson who just wants to spend time with her, warns her, “You worship her and adore her and do everything for her. But she doesn’t care about you at all. That’s not love, Low. That’s obsession.”
None of Harding’s characters are particularly likable, even though, as she was crafting the novel, she wanted Jamie to be. But Harding acknowledges that Jamie “is going through so much drama and strife. It brought out the worst in her.” There is more to it, however. Jamie is not empathetic because she is weak and clingy. She calculates her self-worth according to her inability to conceive a child, and whether Freya has, on any given day, deigned her worthy of being Freya’s friend. Freya is a devious, scheming narcissist who in incapable of feeling true compassion, but manages to convince those in her orbit to comply with her wishes by employing charm, false praise, and the threat of abandonment. The exclusion of Freya’s point of view from the narrative invites readers to draw their own conclusions about the source of her dysfunction and motivations.
Low, meanwhile, is a disturbed young woman whose upbringing in a nontraditional environment and unconventional appearance have compromised her ability to gauge and navigate social relationships, and inhibited her development of healthy friendships. Her moral ambiguity contributes to her issues. Her fascination with Freya is grounded in her insecurity and desire to emulate Freya’s self-assured glamour and style. Max is also troubled — his anger issues, exacerbated by hormone use, have brought tragic consequences that he must live with on a daily basis. His marriage to Freya is teetering on collapse. Brian is easily the most likable, relatable character. He is struggling to pursue his dream of being a writer, and genuinely cares for Jamie and their marriage. He assures her that he has “never wanted to be with anyone else. Since the day I met you . . . you’re the only one for me.” He wants to make her happy, but makes one terrible decision that has far-reaching ramifications. His consternation about how to make things right between them again is the most heartrending aspect of the tale.
The Swap is an engrossing and entertaining look at the lives of five flawed people who make terrible choices. It’s a compelling consideration of the fallout from their bad decisions, and whether good can ultimately flow from her characters’ actions. The story moves at a steady pace. Although the back and forth nature of Freya’s relationships with Low and Jamie grows tiresome, those plot developments propel the story forward and illustrate the dysfunctional, toxic nature of their purported friendships. Harding’s creative and deftly-timed plot twists and disclosures are surprising, and the conclusion is shocking, but decidedly satisfying.
The Swap is dark, atmospheric, and riveting. Harding tackles unsettling themes by creating captivating, unbalanced characters, particularly the diabolical Freya. Psychological thriller fans will enjoy the twisty, evil story and find much to discuss with fellow fans.
Excerpt from The Swap
Chapter 1: Low Morrison
I first saw Freya at my high school. I hated school, found the classes as dull and simple as my fellow students. This attitude did not endear me to my teachers nor my classmates, so I was alone, as usual, when she walked through the double front doors. No one noticed her, which seemed to be her intent. She wore a ball cap and aviator sunglasses that she did not remove under the fluorescent lights. Her shoulder-length blond hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, her heart-shaped face free of makeup. She was petite but curvaceous in her faded jeans and plain white T, with the kind of figure rarely seen outside of comic books. I had a comic-book figure, too… Popeye’s girlfriend Olive Oyl.
Even through the crowd in the hallway, I could tell she was somebody. There was no way I could have known then that she would come into my life and change it, change me, but I felt a magnetic pull toward her, like I had to meet her. It was destiny. The other kids were immune to her presence. It was lunch break, so they were all wrapped up in their pathetic social jockeying—gossiping, flirting, or roughhousing. We would graduate in less than three months, and everyone was already obsessing about prom, pre-parties, after-parties, and college. Everyone but me, that is.
I watched the woman head to the office as Morrissey warbled through my earbuds (unlike my pop- and rap-loving peers, I preferred to listen to angsty classics: the Smiths, Nirvana, R.E.M.). She was too old to be a student, too young to be a parent, too cool to be a teacher. As she disappeared into the principal’s domain, I wondered: Who was this woman? What was she doing at Bayview High? And why was she dressed like an incognito celebrity?
A few minutes later, she emerged from the office with Principal Graph beside her. He was enamored with her; it was obvious in his attentive posture, his fawning mannerisms, the color in his meaty cheeks. The portly administrator led Freya (who had removed her shades but not her hat) to the bulletin board in the main hall. As always, it was covered in ignored bills: school-play announcements, lost-phone notices, guest-speaker posters… Mr. Graph cleared a space for her, handed her a pushpin, and she posted a piece of paper on the board. They chatted for a few seconds, the principal clearly trying to bask in her aura for as long as possible, before she donned her sunglasses and left.
I hurried to the vacated bulletin board, eyes trained on the standard white sheet she had put up. It was a typewritten advertisement in Times New Roman font.
-
- Pottery Classes
Learn to throw, glaze, and fire in a cozy home studio. Make beautiful mugs, bowls, and vases.
Ten classes for $100.
Contact Freya Light.
Casually, I snapped a photo of her contact details just as the bell rang to signal the end of lunch.
I waited two days to text her. I didn’t want her to know that I’d watched her pin the notice on the board, that I’d recorded the information directly, that I had been thinking about her ever since. It’s not as creepy as it sounds. My life was exceptionally boring. I had no friends, no hobbies, no extracurricular activities. I did, however, have a lot of chores. My family had a small hobby farm with chickens, a couple of goats, and a pig. There were always animals to feed, eggs to collect, kindling to be chopped for the woodstove. Whenever I escaped to my room to watch Netflix, my mom would insist she needed help with something. She worked from home as a bookkeeper, but she was obsessed with canning: peaches, green beans, dill pickles, kimchi, applesauce… As if we had to prepare for a nuclear war.
Sometimes, I’d escape to the beach or into the forest to take photographs of seals, driftwood, birds, and trees. My photography teacher, Mr. Pelman, said I had a good eye. He even let me sign out the school cameras, a privilege usually reserved for yearbook club members. Other times, I used my phone. I liked viewing the world through a smaller, more intimate lens. I liked the solitude. And my singular hobby gave me time to think. For the past two days, about little other than Freya.
She fascinated me, this woman who looked like she’d walked off the set of some Beverly Hills reality show. The town of Hawking, where my high school was located, had some wealthy residents. There were the bankers, the real-estate moguls, the captains of industry who summered in the waterfront mansions set along the island’s rugged coastline. Year-round, the town housed a handful of professionals—doctors and lawyers and accountants. But mostly, our island was populated with organic farmers, beekeepers, or artisan candle/soap/pickle makers and those who ran the shops and restaurants servicing the seasonal tourist trade. We had the occasional celebrity pass through town, usually some washed-up old actor en route to the fishing lodge on the island’s northern tip. But Freya was different. She exuded glamour, significance, and a palpable sense of cool.
After deliberating over my words for several hours, I texted:
I’d like to sign up for pottery classes
With a trembling finger, I sent the message.
When she didn’t respond, I fretted. Were my carefully chosen words somehow off-putting? Or had she seen me in the school hallway watching her with barely concealed wonder? Could she read my thoughts—which, while harmless, were perhaps a little… much? It was possible that she had reconsidered offering classes to teens. Why had she wanted to in the first place? Kids my age were assholes. They wouldn’t take learning pottery seriously. They’d joke around, make a mess, show up stoned. Except me. I would treat it like surgery.
Finally, a week later, she texted back.
Hi. Classes start next Monday at 4. Bring a friend!
Ha.
I had one more problem. Or should I say, I had sixty-two more problems.
I decided to steal the shortfall from my younger brothers. I didn’t feel guilty as I rifled under their twin beds for their piggy banks. They were nine and eleven; they had significant birthday money and no expenses. When I got a summer job, I would pay them back… if the little brats even noticed the money was missing. And I would have held up a bank to get the cash I needed. I would have rolled an old lady. These pottery classes, my meeting with Freya, had to happen. It was fated.
That Monday, I drove my battered 1997 Ford F-150 SuperCab pickup truck from school to the address Freya had texted me. I hadn’t fussed with my appearance; there wasn’t much point. But my hair was washed, my lips were coated in enough cherry ChapStick to give them some sheen, and I’d doubled up on deodorant… which was a good thing. My anticipation had me sweating like a hog.
Freya’s isolated home was stunning—a cedar-and-glass structure perched on a rocky cliff above the ocean. It was surrounded by arbutus trees, their naked limbs straining toward the water, and seaside juniper perfuming the air with the tangy scent of gin. The building wasn’t large, but it was sleek, modern, and expensive. The opulence of Freya’s home did not surprise me. She was clearly a somebody, her effortless glamour indicative of wealth. This house, with its ocean view and modern architectural design, would be worth millions. My curiosity about her was further piqued.
I parked in the drive and headed toward the pottery studio. It was a small cottage nestled in the trees about fifty yards to the right of the main house. With its clapboard siding, multipaned windows, and wood-shingled roof, it must have been a remnant of the home’s previous iteration. A chalkboard sign mounted next to the door read: Welcome to the Studio, in a swirly script.
My height allowed me to view her through the window at the top of the door. Freya wore black tights and a loose denim shirt—her pottery smock—her blond hair pulled back in a stylishly messy bun. I watched her plunk a heavy bag of gray clay onto a slab table, arrange her various tools into plastic containers. She was preparing for my arrival, and I found it oddly touching. Before I became mesmerized by my observations, I knocked briefly and entered.
“Hi.” Her smile was broad and white and sincere. “I’m Freya.”
She held out her hand, and I took it. It was smooth and warm, her grip strong from the clay work.
“I’m Low.”
“I’m so happy you came.” Her eyes flitted behind me. “Just you?”
“Yep.”
But she wasn’t disappointed. “One-on-one always works best. Let’s get started.”
Freya handed me a man’s plaid shirt that was too big even for me. As I rolled the sleeves, Freya sliced several one-inch pieces from a block of clay using a wire with two wooden handles—a garrote. We began by “wedging,” pressing the clay into itself, making it malleable and releasing any air bubbles. I watched Freya intently, copying the movement of her small but powerful hands. Afterward, we filled two metal containers with warm water from the back sink and moved to the wheels. Here, we encountered our first hurdle.
“Are you right-handed?” she asked me.
“No, I’m left-handed.”
“Oh.” Her brow furrowed. “You’ll turn your wheel clockwise then. I’ll try to do a left-handed demonstration, but I’m not very ambidextrous.”
“It’s okay,” I assured her. “I’m used to learning everything opposite.”
And so we began. Freya chatted as I got used to the feel of wet clay spinning beneath my hands, of the force of my touch to morph it into a vessel. She had moved to the island just four months ago, she told me. It was her husband’s idea. She had a husband. Of course she did. A beautiful woman her age would not be single.
“He wanted a fresh start,” she elaborated, eyes on the perfect clay cone taking shape upon her wheel.
“And you?” I asked.
She didn’t answer right away. Her hand slipped over the top of the mini mountain, palm compressing it into a small, round hill. “I don’t want to be here. But I have no choice.”
“That makes two of us,” I muttered.
She looked up at me, a slow smile spreading across her face. She saw me. She really saw me. I was not simply a misfit teenager, tall and awkward and outcast.
I was a kindred spirit.
1 Comment
Flawed choices – apt for this story. Thank you for the review.