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Emergence of a
WriterAnn Packer's The Dive from
Clausen's Pier
.tmp) by Tamar
Love I first encountered Ann Packer in
1998, during a trip to the town of Mendocino. While browsing through
Gallery Books, I happened on a collection eponymously titled
Mendocino and Other Stories, written by a familiar-sounding
author named Ann Packer.
I don't know why her name sounded familiar -- I later found
out I'd actually never heard of her -- but I'm glad I picked up the
book, even though it seemed a bit touristy at the time. Only
tangentially related to the quirky tourist town, Packer's stories
were spare, original and arresting, the book a sort of Girls
Guide to Hunting and Fishing as if written by Joan Didion, with
long, intricate complex sentences giving insight into common human
dramas. I looked eagery for other Packer stories, but found none.
Last April, my wait ended: Ann Packer published her first
novel -- in fact, her first book-length work since 1994, when she
published Mendocino. When I received advance publicity
materials for The Dive from Clausen's Pier, I was, instead of
being excited, apprehensive. Usually, it does not take an author
eight years after producing her collection of short stories to
publish her first novel. It was probably only going to be marginally
good.
Boy, was I wrong.
A few months later, I heard Packer's novel was the book-group
pick on one of the morning shows. Then, I saw huge stacks of the
book at the major book venues: Cody's, Book Passage, Stacey's, A
Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books. How interesting, I
thought, and picked up a copy. It sat on my shelf for a few more
weeks, until I'd read several commending reviews, seen Packer
scheduled for readings around the Bay Area and realized she'd become
a major emerging novelist, the kind Oprah and, possibly, the
National Book Award selection committee gives notice to, on which a
low-key big-budget film starring Natalie Portman will be based.
The story of Carrie Bell, a young woman just beginning to
explore her identity, The Dive from Clausen's Pier opens with
a chilling prologue that seems hauntingly foreordained. Carrie and
her group of friends herald the upcoming summer with their annual
picnic at Lake Clausen. By the end of the prologue, we learn two
things: that Carrie has been considering breaking things off with
her high-school- sweetheart-turned-fiancé, Mike, and that Mike, who
dives from the pier into the lake and breaks his neck, is either
dead, in a coma or a quadriplegic.
While this novel is certainly the story of a young couple
learning to cope with a permanent, mobility-impeding disability, it
is foremost the tale of a woman's developing into an adult, someone
capable of leading a life instead of watching it go by. Carrie
relocates herself to a different community and finds herself forced
to make decisions: who will she love, what will she do and who will
she be? The answers surprise: the main character's decisions
are very human, swinging from random plunges into the unknown, to
calm accountability for herself and the world's failings.
More than just a compelling story, as Publishers
Weekly noted, "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." After showing glimmers of
this rare insight into universal issues in Mendocino, the
writer's talents have matured in The Dive from Clausen's
Pier. Those intricate, frightfully clear sentences have become
even richer, proving Packer well deserving of the enormous amount of
publicity her book has received.
I just hope we don't have to wait another eight years for her
next book...
The Dive from Clausen's
Pier
By Ann
Packer
Hardcover: 384 pages (April 2002)
Knopf; ISBN:
0375412824
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