Neddy Merrill decides to swim home across his county by way of his neighbors' pools, and as the afternoon progresses, something goes terribly wrong. Cheever published this in The New Yorker, and it remains his most famous story. The suburban pools glitter in the sunlight; the cocktail parties blur together; the seasons seem to change. What begins as whimsy becomes nightmare, and the ending drops you through ice. Cheever knew about alcoholism and denial and the desperate pretense of upper-middle-class life. The story has the structure of a dream and the precision of diagnosis. Neddy keeps swimming. The water gets colder.