Swim Back to Me

December 13, 2010
Packer's sterling collection is framed by two novellas. 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. Sasha's behavior is a reaction to her controlling and hyper-charming father, an English professor who's spiraling downward professionally and personally. "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. Packer's talents are evident in these psychologically astute novellas, and also in the stories in between. "Molten" conveys a mother's grief over her adolescent son's senseless death; "Dwell Time" features a protagonist's happy second marriage—until her husband disappears. In the affecting "Her First Born," a new father finally understands his wife's attachment to the memory of her first child, who died. The only misstep is "Jump," whose lead character, a rich man's son who fakes an underprivileged background to work in a photocopy shop, lacks credibility. Packer (The Dive from Clausen's Pier) presents complex human relationships with unsentimental compassion.

June 27, 2011
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.