16 Books to Watch for in May 2011
This month, we're showcasing books that tell the truth—or part of it, anyway. From a bittersweet memoir of an exceptionally bad dog to a stunning novel of a family's scandal, there's something for everyone.
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Swim Back to Me
By Ann Packer
240 pages;
Knopf
Most readers know Ann Packer from her best-selling debut novel, The Dive from Clausen's Pier. Her stunning linked-story collection, Swim Back to Me
(Knopf), is even better, richer, more insightful. Packer can break your
heart—and she can mend it, too. Easing readers in with recognizable
characters facing familiar situations—an adolescent boy agonizes over an
unrequited crush, a newlywed worries when her husband is late coming
home—she then injects a detail that makes us see the situations in a
whole new light. If Packer's characters' crises are ordinary, what's
unusual is the poignant way they attempt to right themselves after
crushing hits. The multilayered novella that anchors the book, "Walk for
Mankind," centers on a middle-aged man looking back to when he was 13,
remembering the girl who betrayed him—and his own petty, impotent act of
retaliation. In the story "Dwell Time," a wife discovers her husband's
shattering secret habit and wonders, "What if she could be blasé,
indifferent?... Would that spoil it for him? Enough to keep him from
doing it again?" The final story, "Things Said or Done," is narrated by
the girl from the novella, now also middle-aged. Her recollection of
their adolescent years differs wildly from the events described by the
man she wounded so long ago, a fact that seems—like so much in this fine
work—surprising and absolutely true.
— Karen Holt
Published 04/26/2011