Interesting concept. I’m not familiar with the story, but just read a synopsis of it.
Could you explain why you are reminded of it, what similarities you have found here?
I’d appreciate knowing more.
Just a bit of whimsical comparison on my part. But it’s the story of a guy who at first seems at the top of his form. Socially well liked. Popular.
He decides he’s going to swim home, across the county in the series of pools of those he knows...down what he calls the Lucinda River, after his wife.
It all starts so well, as old acquaintances greet him. Offer him drinks and small talk. Yet as he goes on, and begins to become fatigued, things turn. The crowds he would never have otherwise bothered with grow resentful of his interloping. One family is on vacation and have emptied their pool.
This goes increasingly down hill until he finally makes it to what was once his home which is now a decayed remnant of where his children grew up but are no longer about. The place is locked and empty and he ends up beating at the door to which there will never be an answer.
I was reminded of it by those guys who thought they were being so cool in this adulterous business, only to have reality finally hit them in their faces, herein to the point of suicide.
The short story was made into a film with Burt Lancaster. If you get a chance, check it out sometime. But be ready for its depressing ending.