SWIM

Sam Acquillo has spent most of his time in the Hamptons hanging out with the other half of the moneyed wonderland cops and bartenders, carpenters, store clerks and firemen. He couldn't care less about the concerns of the 1%, until his best friend Burton Lewis, a certified billionaire, is dragged into a high-profile death investigation. When Sam's girlfriend Amanda notes, "Didn't Fitzgerald say, 'the rich are different from you and me'?" "Yeah, they can afford to be even more screwed up." A former corporate super star, brought down by the machinations of the grasping class, Sam's not entirely unfamiliar with the cultural norms of super wealth. It's why he retreated to his cottage refuge at the tip of Oak Point Peninsula jutting into the Little Peconic Bay. But in the intervening years, he's engaged with all forms of low life tough guys and connivers looking for that edge, an easy path into a social order besotted with unattainable yearning. A world where the best revenge is one with no consequences, no penalties or costs. For some, there is no power without prestige, and no prestige that can't be bought. They see no distinction between corporate profit and high-minded non-profits, charity being the currency of social preeminence. In Deep Dive, Sam discovers just how right he is. The rich can achieve a level of depravity and hate both invisible, and incomprehensible, to the rest of us. "Carson Chow is a high functioning addict. For years, he's been able to meet the increasing demands from his aging immigrant parents, while hiding his crystal meth use every other weekend. One Friday night, as he's passed out from a drug binge, he misses thirty-eight phone calls from his father, detailing first the collapse and eventually the death of his mother. Carson had always been close to his mother; he was the only person she confided in when his father had a one-night affair with her younger sister twenty years ago. For the following two weeks, he throws himself into the preparation of his mother's funeral, juggling between temptations and obligations. Sometimes slipping into relapse, his efforts are thwarted by a stoic father who is impractical and unable to take care of himself, a grandmother suffering dementia, a sister with a failing marriage, and a young niece with unknown trauma that can be triggered by the sound of running water. He tries to find support from his ex, Jeremy. Now clean and sober, Jeremy rebuffs him. As Carson assumes his mother's caregiving role, her secret resurfaces and now haunts him alone. Will this tragedy plunge him deeper into his abuse or finally rouse him from his addiction stupor?"--Pages [2-3] of cover