Paul Rouse: ‘The Swimmer’ still stands the test of time

It was no surprise that John Cheever’s story, first published in 1964, was soon made into a film – also called ‘The Swimmer’ – starring Burt Lancaster.

Burt Lancaster in The Swimmer (dir. Frank Perry, 1968). The story is a stunning feat of imagination, utterly original.Picture: Columbia Pictures/Photofest

There are some brilliant short stories related to sport, collected in various volumes and perfect for holiday reading. These stories run throughout the history of modern sports and include some of the most famous authors ever to publish works of fiction.

There is John Updike’s description of a baseball player trying to work out the reasons for his disastrous hitting problems in The Slump. And there is an entirely different type of short story in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Croxley Master.