Product Description

How much do we owe the people we love? Is it a sign of strength or weakness to walk away from someone in need? These questions lie at the heart of Ann Packer’s intimate and emotionally thrilling new novel, which has won its author comparisons with Jane Hamilton and Sue Miller.

At the age of twenty-three Carrie Bell has spent her entire life in Wisconsin, with the same best friend and the same dependable, easygoing, high school sweetheart. Now to her dismay she has begun to find this life suffocating and is considering leaving it–and Mike–behind. But when Mike is paralyzed in a diving accident, leaving seems unforgivable and yet more necessary than ever. The Dive from Clausen’s Pier animates this dilemma–and Carrie’s startling response to it–with the narrative assurance, exacting realism, and moral complexity we expect from the very best fiction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36517 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-08
• Released on: 2003-04-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780375727139
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Carrie Bell is the worst person in the world. Or so she would have you think. In the gripping, carefully paced debut novel of personal epiphany, The Dive from Clausen's Pier, by O. Henry Award winner Ann Packer, Carrie's very survival is dependent upon her leaving her fiancé, even after he dives into shallow water at a Memorial Day picnic and becomes paralyzed. Things hadn't been going so well for the Madison, Wisconsin, high school and college sweethearts. Carrie knew, deep down, that she wasn't going to become Mrs. Michael Mayer. But expectations and pressure from all sides--his family, her mother, her best friend Jamie, Mike's best friend Rooster--force Carrie to shut herself up in her room and sew outfits of her own design as if in a trance. Then one night she slips out of the only universe she's ever known. Many hours later she finds herself on the doorstep of a high school classmate living in Manhattan. Carrie's adventures in the city--quirky roommates and a new romance with an older, emotionally impenetrable man--confuse her in her quest both to forgive herself and to embark on a career in fashion design. Packer writes in a convincing voice and packs a lot into this novel; she infuses Carrie with enough humanity and smarts to choose her own version of "happily ever after." --Emily Russin

From Publishers Weekly
Packer's engrossing debut novel begins without ostentation. On Memorial Day, Carrie Bell and her fiance, Mike Mayer, drive out to Clausen's Pier for their annual ritual, a picnic with their friends, a trip they make the way a middle-aged couple might, in grudging silence. Before their resentments can be aired, Mike dives into too shallow water, suffering injuries that change their lives. If Mike survives, he will survive as a quadriplegic, and Carrie faces unexpected responsibilities. Ultimately, Carrie does what is both understandable and unthinkable. She leaves her hometown of Madison, Wis., and shows up on the doorstep of a friend in New York City. There she discovers a different world, different friends and a different self. The hovering question--what will Carrie do? Abandon Mike or return to him?--generates genuine suspense. Packer portrays her characters--both New Yorkers and Madisonites--deftly, and her scenes unfold with uncommon clarity. But if Packer has a keen eye, she has an even keener ear. The dialogue is usually witty; more important, it is always surprising, as if the characters were actually thinking--one of the reasons they become as familiar to the reader as childhood friends. The recipient of several awards, Packer is also the author of Mendocino and Other Stories. Clearly, she has honed her skills writing short fiction. What is unexpected is the assurance she brings to a larger canvas. In quiet but beautiful prose, Packer tells a complex and subtly constructed story of friendship, love and the hold the past has on the present. This is the sort of book one reads dying to know what happens to the characters, but loves for its wisdom: it sees the world with more clarity than you do.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Carrie Bell, 23, is engaged to her boyfriend of eight and a half years and will likely live and die in the same town where she grew up and attended college. Lately, the prospect of such a life has left her feeling unsatisfied and yearning for something different. On Memorial Day, a picnic get-together with friends turns into a tragedy when Mike, her fianc , dives off Clausen's Pier. Partially paralyzed in both arms and with total paralysis below the waist, he is changed forever. Carrie is then left to decide whether to stay and become the supportive, loving wife everyone expects her to be or leave to pursue a life separate from him. Throughout the novel, she battles the central question of responsibility, what she owes Mike and what she owes herself. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. This story places readers in Carrie Bell's shoes, and will leave them pondering "what if" questions in their own lives. Teens are sure to connect with the protagonist's feelings of unrest and general indecision about her future. This fast-paced, character-driven story will keep them hooked through to the last page.
Julie Dasso, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Starts great, takes a dive
Packer starts her ambitious novel with a picture-perfect prologue: in spare, elegant prose she sets the scene and sends her protagonist's boyfriend to his quadriplegic fate. She takes the reader inside Carrie's head, and her strong writing keeps us engaged as Carrie and friends wait for Mike to emerge from his coma and as Carrie dithers over whether or not she'll look like a creep if she dumps Mike now. Packer has populated her story with a few interesting people--the therapist mom, the co-dependent friend, Mike's pal Rooster--so we forgive the lack of plot and the lack of character development.

Abruptly, the book switches directions. (Perhaps Packer decided that readers must be as bored with Madison as she and Carrie were.) Without warning to mom, friends, fiance, or the reader, Carrie jumps in her car and drives to New York. (Apparently young women never meet with foul play in Madison--Carrie's mom and friends don't seem concerned about her disappearance--they all somehow know that she skipped town because she didn't want to deal with her feelings about Mike.)

Packer's leisurely style becomes lethargic once Carrie hits the Big Apple, where she quickly acquires a free place to live, the stereotypical gay buddy, and an enigmatic boyfriend, Kilroy. Except he's not an interesting enigma; Carrie never figures out what makes him tick, and neither do we. What's more, it's hard to care, or to understand what she sees in him. Nor does New York feel "real." Packer, who excels in portraying Madison, fails to capture any of the essence of the big city.

The reader is still inside Carrie's head, but not a lot seems to be going on there. Much of her behavior is inexplicable. For example: she's planning to come to Madison for a visit (Rooster's wedding). Being a talented seamstress, she buys the most gorgeous, expensive fabric in the most upscale fabric store in New York and fashions a stunning outfit for herself. Then, at the last moment, she decides not to go. This scene, which could (and should) have some emotional depth--might even explain Carrie's internal state of disrepair--is simply flat.

Finally, Carrie comes home to Madison (she never should have left) and the story picks up again--but by then I was tired of her whining, her lack of insight, her poor impulse control, and her inability to learn from her past mistakes.

Other reviewers have mentioned the sex scenes. I suspect that a well-meaning friend or editor told Packer that she needed to spice up her book, and that's why she inflicted these embarrassing and ineptly written episodes on her readers.

Bottom line: not awful, not great, could have been better.

Jung at Heart
Ann Packer's THE DIVE FROM CLAUSEN'S PIER is a fascinating exercise in philosophical meanderings. While reading the novel, after finishing its last page, even when typing a review on-line, one can't help but wonder "What would I do? How would I react to my finace's paralysis?" Heavy ponderings, deep moral discussions, and unfortunately, a rather shallow literary style and character development.

This was an odd reading experience for me. Mirroring the heroine's crisis of ethics and morality--Should she stay with her crippled boyfriend or forge a new life?--it was almost as if the author, too, was trying to flesh out a novel while typing it. Every page seemed to cry out, "What if I wrote a book about a girl who had to decide whether to stay or go?"

According to the book flap, the author is an award winner and an accomplished short story writer. Perhaps that's the problem she encountered here. The conceit of this book is terrific--challenging the heroine and reader to examine what is right vs. what is doable. However, it doesn't survive a nearly 400-page treatment.

The characters are all one-dimensional. Even heroine Carrie Bell, who literally appears on every page, never grows beyond a fetching Midwestern girl who dated too young and too exclusively, and who sure loves to sew. I imagine her need to mend and to alter, to measure and to seam together, is a metaphor for her desire to reshape and re-examine her past and future decisions. Perhaps in a 40-page short story, that would be a strong, though somewhat corny, device. Here, in a novel format, the constant excursions to the fabric store and her sit-downs behind the sewing machine are clunky and embarrassing. It's especially hokey because so many times the outifits that Carrie is supposedly creating sound positively horrid and outdated, yet her old and new crowd of friends christen her the next Betsey Johnson cum Stella McCartney. Not very likely from the really stodgy descriptions of her ensembles.

I don't know how to position a book like this. It's not really serious literature, and it's not tempestuous enough to be a romance novel. It's sort of a "chick flick" meets Freud or Hume (or name any other philosopher/shrink of your choice). I suppose that's the genius of this book. I can't say it was well written, but at least it was written. For all those armchair authors out there, take inspiration from this novel. You don't have to create realistic characters, clever dialogue; you don't have to have memorable scenes or appealing supporting players. As long as you throw in some recognizable brand names, a few "hip" slang words, and some nontraditional traditional characters (a gay best friend, a gay roommate, a gay black fashionista), you can get published.

The true key to this book's success is the philosophical quagmire it dares to wade into: Are we all put on this earth to be kind to others or kind to ourselves? Are we supposed to sacrifice our happiness for others or do we learn how to share a little while losing a lot?

This is a great book for a philosophy curriculum or a local book club. It will definitely get you thinking. Or, if you've just dived into analysis, this could be a conduit for self-examination and a pleasant way to fill your 50 minutes on the couch. In terms of being a well-written, entertaining book, it floats somewhere between being a YA novel about growing up and cutting ties with home and a Ladies' Home Journal bit of fiction. The people who populate the pages are all types and never go beyond that. The ultimate decision between Carrie's injured boyfriend, who was growing tiresome to her even before the diving accident, and her new New York City lover, Kilroy, an older man who loves to play mind games, practices head trips, and seems to be a bit of a control freak, is a ghastly Hobson's Choice. The heroine has to contend with whether she should spend her life as a nursemaid/martyr or a protege/emotional punching bag. Great dilemma.

Pick up this book if you want to think about your own role in this tortured melodrama. Perhaps it will inspire you to start your own manuscript or your own game of "What If?" Just think--maybe if you come up with a brain-teasing moral quandry and keep at if for 300 pages, you too can get a literary agent, and what if . . .

Well, it wasn't terrible...
The Dive From Clausen's Pier was initially engaging. Being 23 isn't always the great ride that everyone thinks it is-some of us are stuck in between adult life and childhood, trying to reconcile responsibilities with real life. To that end, Packer has created a crippling (pardon the pun) dilemma: stay with someone that you no longer love out of obligation or follow your heart across the country. But the problem in this book lies less in the premise than in the execution of the main character, Carrie. She's a completely indifferent and I had trouble summoning up any type of sympathy for her and I had even more trouble figuring out why anyone cared about her. There was very little character development on her part, and for the most part you realize that much of the novel just didn't ring true at all and you're left thinking "what did I just read"?