
Swim Back to Me
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
By:
-
Ann Packer
About this listen
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
©2011 Ann Packer (P)2011 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Leigh Howard and the Ghosts of Simmons-Pierce Manor
- By: Shawn M. Warner
- Narrated by: Theresa Bakken
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leigh's life has been ripped apart. Orphaned, she goes to live with incredibly wealthy relatives she never knew she had. Struggling to fit into her new world, she can't let go of her grief. When the police tell her the investigation into her parents' murder has hit a brick wall, she knows the only way she will ever know peace is to solve the mystery herself. With new family and friends, which includes a ghost with multiple personality issues, Leigh risks everything to find her answers.
-
-
Tiktok comes through again!
- By Allison Wright on 08-25-23
By: Shawn M. Warner
-
Things You Won't Say
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Pekkanen
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every morning, as her husband Mike straps on his SIG Sauer and pulls on his heavy Magnum boots, Jamie Anderson tenses up. Then comes the call she has always dreaded: There's been a shooting at police headquarters. Mike isn't hurt, but his longtime partner is grievously injured. As weeks pass and her husband's insomnia and disconnectedness mount, Jamie realizes he is an invisible casualty of the attack. Then the phone rings again. Another shooting - but this time Mike has pulled the trigger.
-
-
Perfect for my long car ride
- By CMSCO on 06-04-15
By: Sarah Pekkanen
-
Here We Lie
- By: Paula Treick DeBoard
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Alex McKenna
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Megan Mazeros and Lauren Mabrey are complete opposites on paper. Megan is a girl from a modest Midwest background, and Lauren is the daughter of a senator from an esteemed New England family. But in 1999, Megan and Lauren become college roommates and, as two young women struggling to find their place on campus, they forge a strong, albeit unlikely, friendship. The two quickly become inseparable, sharing clothes, advice and their most intimate secrets.
-
-
Easy read
- By Narelle on 02-14-18
-
Commonwealth
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly - thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.
-
-
Patchett and Me--In-sympatico
- By Mel on 09-18-16
By: Ann Patchett
-
Olive Kitteridge
- Fiction
- By: Elizabeth Strout
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
-
-
Depressing! Watse of a credit!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-28-19
By: Elizabeth Strout
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Leigh Howard and the Ghosts of Simmons-Pierce Manor
- By: Shawn M. Warner
- Narrated by: Theresa Bakken
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leigh's life has been ripped apart. Orphaned, she goes to live with incredibly wealthy relatives she never knew she had. Struggling to fit into her new world, she can't let go of her grief. When the police tell her the investigation into her parents' murder has hit a brick wall, she knows the only way she will ever know peace is to solve the mystery herself. With new family and friends, which includes a ghost with multiple personality issues, Leigh risks everything to find her answers.
-
-
Tiktok comes through again!
- By Allison Wright on 08-25-23
By: Shawn M. Warner
-
Things You Won't Say
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Pekkanen
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every morning, as her husband Mike straps on his SIG Sauer and pulls on his heavy Magnum boots, Jamie Anderson tenses up. Then comes the call she has always dreaded: There's been a shooting at police headquarters. Mike isn't hurt, but his longtime partner is grievously injured. As weeks pass and her husband's insomnia and disconnectedness mount, Jamie realizes he is an invisible casualty of the attack. Then the phone rings again. Another shooting - but this time Mike has pulled the trigger.
-
-
Perfect for my long car ride
- By CMSCO on 06-04-15
By: Sarah Pekkanen
-
Here We Lie
- By: Paula Treick DeBoard
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Alex McKenna
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Megan Mazeros and Lauren Mabrey are complete opposites on paper. Megan is a girl from a modest Midwest background, and Lauren is the daughter of a senator from an esteemed New England family. But in 1999, Megan and Lauren become college roommates and, as two young women struggling to find their place on campus, they forge a strong, albeit unlikely, friendship. The two quickly become inseparable, sharing clothes, advice and their most intimate secrets.
-
-
Easy read
- By Narelle on 02-14-18
-
Commonwealth
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly - thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.
-
-
Patchett and Me--In-sympatico
- By Mel on 09-18-16
By: Ann Patchett
-
Olive Kitteridge
- Fiction
- By: Elizabeth Strout
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
-
-
Depressing! Watse of a credit!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-28-19
By: Elizabeth Strout
-
She's Come Undone
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before really going belly-up.
-
-
Really disappointing narrator!
- By DrJessWill on 01-21-12
By: Wally Lamb
-
Heft
- By: Liz Moore
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne, Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Forrmer academic Arthur Opp weighs 550 pounds and hasn’t left his rambling Brooklyn home in a decade. Twenty miles away in Yonkers, seventeen-year-old Kel Keller navigates life as the poor kid in a rich school and pins his hopes on what seems like a promising baseball career - if he can untangle himself from his family drama.
-
-
Intriguing--Captivating--Altering
- By Mel on 04-19-12
By: Liz Moore
-
All Fall Down
- By: Jennifer Weiner
- Narrated by: Tracee Chimo
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Allison Weiss is a typical working mother, trying to balance a business, aging parents, a demanding daughter, and a marriage. But when the website she develops takes off, she finds herself challenged to the point of being completely overwhelmed. Her husband’s becoming distant, her daughter’s acting spoiled, her father is dealing with early Alzheimer’s, and her mother’s barely dealing at all.
-
-
Annoying
- By Jessica on 06-17-15
By: Jennifer Weiner
-
Who Do You Love
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Weiner
- Narrated by: Sarah Steele, JD Jackson
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rachel Blum and Andy Landis are eight years old when they meet late one night in an ER waiting room. Born with a congenital heart defect, Rachel is a veteran of hospitals, and she's intrigued by the boy who shows up all alone with a broken arm. He tells her his name. She tells him a story. After Andy's taken back to the emergency room and Rachel's sent back to her bed, they think they'll never see each other again.
-
-
Performer
- By Christine C. on 01-14-17
By: Jennifer Weiner
-
Fly Away Home
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Weiner
- Narrated by: Judith Light
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the number-one New York Times best-selling author, a novel about three very different women who become friends while seeking refuge in an old beach house.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Jayne Greeley on 07-25-10
By: Jennifer Weiner
-
Best Friends Forever
- By: Jennifer Weiner
- Narrated by: James Colby, Nicole Poole
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Addie Downs and Valerie Adler will be best friends forever. That’s what Addie believes after Valerie moves across the street when they’re both nine years old. But in their teenage years, Val is swept into the popular crowd. Flash-forward 15 years. Addie Downs lives alone in her parents’ house, caring for a troubled brother and trying to meet Prince Charming on the Internet. she opens her door to find her long-gone best friend standing there, a terrified look on her face and blood on the sleeve of her coat.
-
-
very enjoyable
- By kay on 06-24-11
By: Jennifer Weiner
-
Mrs. Kimble
- By: Jennifer Haigh
- Narrated by: Martha Plimpton
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A captivating exploration of human love, marriage, and the illusions upon which it is founded, Mrs. Kimble presents a fascinating psychological portrait of a mesmerizing opportunist and the women who believe in him. Beautifully wrought, stunningly original, Jennifer Haigh's sparkling debut marks the arrival of a remarkable new talent.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Katherine on 01-10-05
By: Jennifer Haigh
-
Dreamland
- By: Sarah Dessen
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Morton
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Caitlin can't afford to leave this dreamland, this half-sleeping state where everything and everyone can be kept at arm's length. Because then she'd have to face the ugly truth about her relationship with Rogerson: magnetic, fascinating--and very dangerous--Rogerson. What is it about Rogerson Biscoe...and why can't she leave him?
-
-
narrarator very bland
- By Dani on 02-25-16
By: Sarah Dessen
-
A Scattered Life
- By: Karen McQuestion
- Narrated by: Teri Clark Linden
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In A Scattered Life, Karen McQuestion proves to be an adept chronicler of unforgettable female characters. Poignantly written, she thoughtfully examines how women love, learn, and come to accept themselves and others, as well as life’s often harsh realities of deception and loss. Skyla Plinka has all she could ask for - at least that’s what her mother-in-law Audrey thinks. On most days, Skyla agrees, yet there’s a part of her that longs for her free-spirited days before husband, child, and the humdrum life of rural Wisconsin.
-
-
just ok
- By Amazon Customer on 05-11-16
By: Karen McQuestion
-
The English Teacher
- By: Lily King
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fifteen years ago, Vida Avery arrived alone and pregnant at elite Fayer Academy. By living on campus, on an island off the New England coast, Vida has cocooned herself and her son, Peter, from the outside world and from an inside secret. For years, she has lived largely through the books she teaches, but when she accepts the impulsive marriage proposal of ardent widower Tom Belou, the prescribed life Vida has constructed is swiftly dismantled.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Sherry on 10-26-06
By: Lily King
-
The Amateur Marriage
- A Novel
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Blair Brown
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They seemed like the perfect couple: young, good-looking, made for each other. The moment Pauline, a stranger to the Polish Eastern Avenue neighborhood of Baltimore (though she lived only twenty minutes away), walked into his mother's grocery store, Michael was smitten. And in the heat of World War II fervor, they are propelled into a hasty wedding. But they never should have married.
-
-
Awesome Anne Tyler
- By Pamela Harvey on 01-25-04
By: Anne Tyler
-
The Book of Unknown Americans
- A Novel
- By: Cristina Henríquez
- Narrated by: Various
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A boy and a girl who fall in love. Two families whose hopes collide with destiny. An extraordinary novel that offers a resonant new definition of what it means to be American. Arturo and Alma Rivera have lived their whole lives in Mexico. One day, their beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter, Maribel, sustains a terrible injury, one that casts doubt on whether she’ll ever be the same. And so, leaving all they have behind, the Riveras come to America with a single dream: that in this country of great opportunity and resources, Maribel can get better.
-
-
The Book of Re-Opening my Heart
- By Syd Young on 01-04-15
Critic reviews
[Praise for Ann Packer’s Swim Back to Me “As funny as it is sad. . . . Full of revelations . . . near perfection. . . . [A] lovely, masterful collection.” (Mameve Medwed, Boston Globe)
“Most readers know Ann Packer from her best-selling debut novel. Swim Back to Me 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 . . . she then injects a detail that makes us see the situations in a whole new light. . . . This fine work [is] surprising and absolutely true.” (Karen Holt, O, The Oprah Magazine)
“Astute. . . . Anyone intrigued by the ways we both fail and save one another will find ample food for thought here.” (Kim Hubbard, People)
What listeners say about Swim Back to Me
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- RueRue
- 07-29-15
Boring
This discription of this short story collection sounded so promising, but the stories were pointless and boring. Even the good narration couldn't make the stories interesting.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful