A collection of burnished, emotionally searing stories, framed by two masterfully linked narratives that express the transformation of a single family over the course of a lifetime.
A wife struggles to make sense of her husband’s sudden disappearance. A mother mourns her teenage son through the music collection he left behind. A woman shepherds her estranged parents through her brother’s wedding and reflects on the year her family collapsed. A young man comes to grips with the joy — and vulnerability — of impending fatherhood. And, in the masterful opening novella, two teenagers from very different families forge a sustaining friendship, only to discover the disruptive and unsettling power of sex.
These stories explore 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. Swim Back to Me is a work of shimmering psychological precision, unfailing intelligence, and page-turning drama.
“Audacious, imaginative and poignant … Packer can compress a lifetime of hope and sorrow in a short story.”
— Miami Herald
“Exhilarating … searing … smart and compelling … [Packer’s] stories brim with piercing vitality and clear-eyed believability … [She] is particularly adept at building suspense — a trait not typically associated with literary fiction — and she teases it out of everyday situations.”
— Washington Post
“A tour de force … these stories [have] power and grace. With this collection, Ann Packer takes her place among today’s best authors of literary fiction.”
— Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Her patient investigations reveal human longing in such clear, stripped-down familiarity — never shirking from the difficult — that readers experience a singular sense of comfort.”
— San Francisco Chronicle
“Ann Packer’s Swim Back to Me reminded me of why I fell in love with literature in the first place. Upon closing the book, I thought, ‘I’ll read this again.’”
— Philadelphia Inquirer
“Packer paints these lives with full and compassionate brushstrokes … [Her] greatest strength lies in her refusal to offer easy answers.”
— New York Times Book Review
“Most readers know Ann Packer from her best-selling debut novel, The Dive from Clausen’s Pier. Her stunning linked-story collection … is even better, richer, more insightful. Packer can break your heart —and she can mend it, too.”
— O Magazine
“Astute … Anyone intrigued by the ways we both fail and save one another will find ample food for thought here.”
— People
“Deeply engrossing … [Packer] illuminates the instant, in the darkest hour of grief, when the heart opens wider than ever before — and shows us a new way of being.”
— More
“Wonderful … A lovely, masterful collection.”
— Boston Globe
“Packer … is a master at getting to the heart of characters struggling on in the face of loss … Swim Back to Me is best enjoyed for Packer’s sharply focused snapshots of people at pivotal points in their lives, a focus so intense that we can feel as if we’re spying on them.”
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“The beginning of [each of] Packer’s stories feels as nonchalant as stepping into a puddle but results in a sudden plunge into deep water … Deceptively simple and full of moral complications, the stories in Swim Back to Me are potent and deftly written.”
— Dallas Morning News