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Swim Back to Me

By: Ann Packer
Narrated by: Fred Sanders, Cassandra Campbell, Rebecca Lowman, Kathe Mazur, Mark Deakins, Kirsten Potter
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Publisher's summary

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 Audio
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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

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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.

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