THE LONG SWIM,by Terese SvobodaROXY AND COCO, by Terese Svoboda

Each story in “The Long Swim,” the latest collection from the interdisciplinary writer Terese Svoboda, begins with a tangled paragraph of striking sentences. Characters cross paths in unpredictably baroque relationships. Narrators find themselves on the edges of the action — the wife of “a beloved-enough cousin,” “the only woman” on the expedition — paddling their way to the center of the plot. Call it amped-up in medias res, and take a moment to find your bearings. You have been gleefully tossed into the deep end.