Packer's talents are evident in these psychologically astute novellas, and also in the stories in between. 'Things Said or Done' is set three decades later, when Sasha, now 51 and divorced, has become Richard's caretaker, forced to deal with his self-destructive, narcissistic personality while recognizing the ways in which they are alike. Sasha's behavior is a reaction to her controlling and hyper-charming father, an English professor who's spiraling downward professionally and personally. In the opener, 'Walk for Mankind,' teenager Richard Appleby describes his bittersweet relationship with Sasha Horowitz, a rebellious, risk-taking 14-year-old, who has a clandestine affair with a drug dealer. Packer's sterling collection is framed by two novellas. With Swim Back to Me, she delivers shimmering psychological precision, unfailing intelligence, and page-turning drama: her most enticing work yet. And, in the masterly opening novella, two teenagers from very different families forge a sustaining friendship, only to discover the disruptive and unsettling power of sex.Īnn Packer is one of our most talented archivists of family life, with its hidden crevasses and unforeseeable perils, and in these stories she explores the moral predicaments that define our social and emotional lives, the frailty of ordinary grace, and the ways in which we are shattered and remade by loss. A young man comes to grips with the joy-and vulnerability-of fatherhood.

A woman shepherds her estranged parents through her brother’s wedding and reflects on the year her family collapsed.

A mother mourns her teenage son through the music collection he left behind.

From Ann Packer, author of the New York Times best-selling novels The Dive from Clausen’s Pier and Songs Without Words, a collection of burnished, emotionally searing stories, framed by two unforgettable linked narratives that express the transformation of a single family over the course of a lifetime.Ī wife struggles to make sense of her husband’s sudden disappearance.

Swim back to me by ann packer