The Cure for Drowning cover art

The Cure for Drowning

Preview

Try for $0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Cure for Drowning

Written by: Loghan Paylor
Narrated by: Landon Doak, Victoria Carr, Belinda Corpuz
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $22.09

Buy Now for $22.09

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 GILLER PRIZE

Evocative, magical and luminously written,
The Cure for Drowning is not only a brilliant, boundary-pushing love story but a Canadian historical novel that boldly centres queer and non-binary characters in unprecedented ways.

Born Kathleen to an immigrant Irish farming family in southern Ontario, Kit McNair has been a troublesome changeling since, at ten, they fell through the river ice and drowned—only to be nursed back to life by their mother's Celtic magic. A daredevil in boy's clothes, Kit chafes at every aspect of a farmgirl's life, driving that same mother to distraction with worry about where Kit will ever fit in. When Rebekah Kromer, an elegant German-Canadian doctor's daughter, moves to town with her parents in April 1939, Rebekah has no doubt as to who 19-year-old Kit is. Soon she and Kit, and Kit's older brother, Landon, are drawn tight in a love triangle that will tear them and their families apart, and send each of them off on a separate path to war.

Landon signs up for the Navy. Kit, now known as Christopher, joins the Royal Air Force, becoming a bomber navigator relied on for his luck and courage. Rebekah serves with naval intelligence in Halifax, until one more collision with Landon changes the course of her life and draws her back to the McNair farm—a place where she'd once known love. Fallen on even harder times, the McNairs welcome all the help she is able to give, and she believes she has found peace at last. Until, with the war over, Kit and Landon return home.

Told in the vivid, unforgettable voices of Kit and Rebekah, The Cure for Drowning is a powerfully engrossing novel that imagines a history that is truer than true.

©2024 Loghan Paylor (P)2024 Random House Canada
20th Century Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Literature & Fiction War
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What the critics say

“Brimming with magic and historical detail, The Cure for Drowning is a rare wonder of a book. A profound exploration of lives entwined, it is, at once, a page-turning read and a richly imagined study of love—the kind that overcomes and endures, and ultimately transforms us into who we’re meant to be.” —Ami McKay, bestselling author of The Birth House, The Virgin Cure and The Witches of New York

“Loghan Paylor takes us on a journey of history, the complexity of family, both the ones we’re born into and the ones we choose, and the intoxication of queer love. This novel is deftly written and propulsive; the fantastical as important in detail as everything else. I’ll be thinking about this novel for years to come.” —Jessica Johns, author of Bad Cree

The Cure for Drowning is a captivating and utterly engrossing work of historical fiction—intricately crafted, epic in scope and yet astonishingly intimate. In riveting prose, infused throughout with magic, Paylor renders characters who are painfully, exquisitely human; who traverse landscapes as diverse as a rural family farm in Ontario, jazz clubs in Halifax and the airfields of Europe during World War II, and yet who feel as familiar as neighbours. Evocative of the works of Ann-Marie MacDonald and Alice Munro, The Cure for Drowning has all the makings of a modern classic; a debut that is as grounded as it is ground-breaking, as tender as it is thrilling. To anyone who has ever wondered what makes a Great Canadian Novel, Paylor has delivered the answer.” —Jasmine Sealy, author of The Island of Forgetting, winner of the Amazon First Novel Award

What listeners say about The Cure for Drowning

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

brilliant love story

A riviting story of love and finding the person who you truly belong with. Beautifully written, an absorbing read that will draw you in and makes it very hard to pause until the very end.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Give it a miss

Lacking depth in both narrative and characters. The audio narrators lend a feel of a poorly rehearsed high school play. I had heard a review on CBC and was sorry to discover it didn’t meet expectations.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!