Swim back to me [electronic resource]. Ann Packer.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780307877956 (sound recording)
- Physical Description: 1 online resource (6 audio files) : digital
- Edition: Unabridged.
- Publisher: New York : Random House Audio, 2011.
Content descriptions
General Note: | Unabridged. |
Participant or Performer Note: | Narrator: Various. |
Summary, etc.: | 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. 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 fatherhood. 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. Ann 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. With Swim Back to Me, she delivers shimmering psychological precision, unfailing intelligence, and page-turning drama: her most enticing work yet. |
System Details Note: | Requires the Libby app or a modern web browser. |
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Fiction. Literature. Short Stories. |
Genre: | Electronic books. |
More Options
Holds
0 current holds with 0 total copies.
Electronic resources

Publishers Weekly Review
Swim Back to Me
Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Six narrators perform this collection of short stories with compassionate, sensitive readings. The standout is Kirsten Potter, whose wry, ironic tone perfectly fits her narration as a woman recalling her quirky family history as she plays peacemaker to her estranged parents at her brother's wedding. Kathe Mazur also does well in evoking the anxiety of a woman whose new husband does not come home, and her anger and confusion on discovering that he has a habit of simply "disappearing" for days without telling anyone. But all the narrators do exemplary jobs in conveying the rich layers in these nuanced slice-of-life tales. A Knopf hardcover. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal Review
Swim Back to Me
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
This new collection from Packer (The Dive from Clausen's Pier) is framed by two stunning first-person narratives that introduce readers to two academic families briefly converging in and around Stanford in the 1970s. In each case, the narrator comes from the second generation. The opening story, "Walk for Mankind," captures the viewpoint of the teenage son of an established Stanford history professor, while the closing piece, "Things Said and Done," gives voice to the adventurous daughter of a visiting instructor taking a step down from Yale for a one-year appointment in Palo Alto. In each instance, Packer pulls the strings in such a way that the itinerant father, doomed by his difficult personality to a life perpetually lived off the tenure track, becomes the focal point. Unfortunately, or perhaps inevitably, the other four stories in the volume, though well crafted and engaging, have the feel of problems solved rather than lives fully lived. VERDICT Whereas some great short story writers stumble with the sprawl of a novel, Packer, who occasionally works on a smaller scale, appears to be a novelist at heart. Still, these California stories are expansive and open-ended. It's hard to let them go. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/10.]-Sue Russell, Bryn Mawr, PA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

BookList Review
Swim Back to Me
Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
For readers of short fiction, these three short stories and three novellas will be delightful. Packer, author of the novel The Dive from Clausen's Pier (2002), proves as adept with shorter forms as she is with novels. As expected from a winner of the Alex Award, the young characters that appear in this collection, though few, are well rounded and memorable. But even more memorable are the adults: the Yale graduate who can't hold a job and is descending the teaching ladder, the apprehensive husband whose pregnant wife lost her first child to SIDS, and the second-time-around wife whose life is disrupted when her new husband disappears. Many of these people live in California, and readers will be almost blinded by the white sunlight and will feel the verdant shade of the forest in Packer's powerfully described settings. These resonant, memorable stories evoke difficulties in family life and will appeal to those who enjoy such disparate writers as Lee Smith, A. S. Byatt, and ZZ Packer. Delicious!--Loughran, Ellen Copyright 2010 Booklist