Swim Back to Me [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

"Swim Back to Me" is Ann Packer's new collection, featuring a novella and short stories. I am not usually a fan of short stories (I always want more), and Packer's structuring of the book satisfied that urge. Others have synopsized the 6 pieces, so I won't be redundant. Instead, here are the top ten things that are great about "Swim Back to Me."

10. Having spent my high school years in Palo Alto, in the late 60s, her descriptions of the place and time were spot-on. She captured the high schoolers trying to blend in with the Stanford students, the geography, the different areas of the town, the feel of the seasons, and the often effete snobbery of the professorial families. When she described an Eichler house, I knew I had been transported back in time.

9. Packer has conceived great characters, from angst-ridden teens to grieving mothers to narcissistic fathers to new fathers and loud-mouthed partners. Everyone in the stories has a unique personality with unique quirks.

8. Having just finished a book in which the death of an infant turned a family to a lifetime of alcoholism and despair, it was refreshing to see a woman move on after such an event, still cherish her lost baby, but move forward to love her new infant. I needed to hear that this was possible.

7. Best/worst description of a bladder infection. I hadn't read that before.

6. There are characters that come out of nowhere, for no apparent reason, yet stand out like jewels in the narrative: a man along the Walk for Mankind route, a mother of the bride with a To Do list that includes meditation for all the guests. These are the characters that keep stories from feeling contrived.

5. It's a lovely tour of California (and many places I know well, which made it especially entertaining to me): Palo Alto/Stanford in the 70s, the Bay Area, the shingled faculty club and homes of Berkeley, the foothills of Auburn. Go take a little literary tour. You'll enjoy it.

4. Some great relationships. Not great in that they work seamlessly, but great in their complexities and difficulties and concessions and refusals to concede. A daughter dealing with her crochety narcissistic father. Not fun, but dealing with it. A woman in her second marriage, having lost a child in her first, forging a new relationship with he new husband. A grieving mother trying to understand her lost son's best friend.

3. The affirmation that parents can learn to love (and see the poetry in) their kids' music.

2. Packer can turn a phrase with the best of them. Her sentences twist and turn smoothly. Her dialog is natural, yet unique to each character.

1. Packer ties the novella ("Walk for Mankind") with the final story ("Things Said or Done"), which, for me, gave it a continued life, some closure, and some new points to ponder. There are family jokes that transcend the decades, the things that bring warm moments even when it seems no warm moments are left. Does reading get any better than that?

I could probably give a quick synopsis of Ann Packer's latest offering SWIM BACK TO ME in five words...."it's about pain and loss". The pain involved is both physical and emotional and the loss is about every conceivable type of loss that leaves a gaping void in ones life from the loss of one's childhood, to the loss of a friend, a child, a spouse, a life-style, an unfulfilled dream....well you get the idea.

While the author's writing style initially pulls you into each of the six stories it does not compensate for the unfulfilled feeling you get as a reader. There is truly no satisfactory resolution to any of the scenarios. It is as if the author were writing in her diary and relating events from her personal life experiences.......short little vignettes that unfold with no true beginning or end. Perhaps the reason Packer chose SWIM BACK TO ME as the title of her book is because the reader is left swimming in a sea of questions and must make it back to shore (and solutions) without any assistance from the writer. Guess that this reader is in dire need of some additional swimming lessons.

It is my practice to try not to read too much about a book (back covers, fly-leafs, detailed reviews, etc.) before reading it; I like to let the author reveal the plot and characters to me. So I started Ann Packer's new book, "Swim Back To Me", thinking it was a novel of 6 chapters. It begins in 1972 with precocious eight graders, Richard Appleby and Sasha Horowitz. Richard is our narrator recalling this pivotal time in his life his early teens in San Francisco during the "Hippy" years. But he's a bit of an innocent and so it takes him a while to understand what dangerous choices his friend Sasha is making with a much older pot dealer. This section of the novel is very evocative of being a teen in the early-mid 1970s - almost historical fiction! Packer's descriptions recall what it was like back then when things were so quickly changing in American culture; divorce was starting to be common and "free love" and permissiveness were practiced by some "cool" parents.

When Richard's 1970s story ended, I found that the story seemed to completely start over but I read on thinking it would relate back to the previous chapter. When it didn't, I checked the publisher's notes and, silly me, THIS IS NOT A NOVEL, it's a "collection of narratives" (why not call them short stories?) So THAT explained it and I continued on enjoying the stories. Maybe when it comes out in April it will have "Stories" on the cover.

There are six stories and I enjoyed each. "Molten" told of Kathryn who is deep in grief over her teen son, Ben's, tragic death. She tries to make sense of it all by listening to his CD collection. "Her Firstborn" is a beautifully written story about a couple expecting their first baby. I won't give away the plot line, but I must say that Packer skillfully writes the tale straddling the line between pathos and suspense. "Jump" is about a Urinary Tract Infection and how you can't always be sure you know who your coworkers are.

My favorite of the collection is "Dwell Time"; why hasn't Laura's new husband come home yet? Here Packer does an excellent writing job describing Laura's inner-narrative and fights of magical thinking while her worry and dread builds and builds.

The final story, "Things Said and Done" ties back to the first story of Richard and Sasha, but I won't reveal how because I wouldn't want to spoil how well Packer unfolds it all for the reader. What I found in "Swim Back To Me" was a wonderful set of interesting, moving, and well written stories.