Packer

AT one time or another, most of us have probably felt an overwhelming desire to just pack a bag and leave town. Go far away, to a more exciting place where our problems can’t catch us. But we don’t, for a variety of reasons — we can’t abandon our loved ones, our jobs or the homes we’ve worked so hard for. We realize our problems will still be waiting for us when we get back, anyway.

But still, sometimes it’s a nice thought.

Ann Packer’s new novel, “The Dive from Clausen’s Pier,” explores what happens when someone tries to escape the pressures of life with a change of scenery. The novel opens with Packer’s heroine, Carrie Bell, on her way to a Memorial Day picnic with her fiancé, Mike. Carrie and Mike have been together eight years — since high school — and Carrie has become restless in their relationship.

At the picnic Mike dives off the pier in an effort to impress Carrie and ends up with a serious head injury and broken back. As the weeks drag on with Mike in a coma, Carrie becomes increasingly unhappy and feels that she cannot withstand the pressure of nursing Mike back to health. She is also terrified at the thought of spending the rest of her life with a quadriplegic. Carrie begins to feel smothered by Mike, her family, her friends and Wisconsin itself:

“In Madison, winter went on forever, October to May in some years, so long it often felt endless — less ‘winter’ than Madison itself, life itself. Spring was a blink of an eye, fall a brief, surprising chill. The hottest summers felt short, no matter how hot, how humid. This one though ... July crept by, one scorching day after another. The humidity was unbearable. Leaving the library or the hospital, I thought of the outside air as malevolent. It should have been green, a witch’s breath. Or the gray of toxic exhaust.”

Seeking an escape, Carrie flees her apartment in Wisconsin in the middle of the night and moves in with a high school friend in New York. She soon begins an affair with an acquaintance named Kilroy. Kilroy is the opposite of safe, sweet, dependable Mike. He has no ambition, and spends the majority of his time shooting pool in a neighborhood bar in Manhattan. Kilroy’s apartment, unlike the comfortable, lived-in surroundings of Carrie’s hometown in Wisconsin, is sparse. It has no pictures on the walls, few pieces of furniture and nothing personal. In a sense, Kilroy’s impersonal apartment reflects his life.

In the beginning the relationship between Carrie and Kilroy seems primarily physical. He’s also emotionally distant, and Carrie wonders about his secrets. She begins to fall in love with Kilroy, and is amazed by how different her relationships are with the two men in her life.

But she cannot sever her ties with Wisconsin completely. When her best friend’s family is confronted with a crisis, Carrie is divided between her ties to home and the newness of her life in New York.

A visit to her hometown makes the problem even worse. Carrie realizes that choosing one life, one man, or one place will not be easy: “I felt split in half. When I was with Mike, I thought of Kilroy. When I was on the phone with Kilroy, I thought of Mike.”

As a character, Carrie makes for interesting discussion. Do we admire her courage in forging a new life for herself in a strange, intimidating city like New York? Or do we see her as cold and selfish for leaving and turning her back on her family and friends? Many of the other characters in the book condemn her for abandoning Mike. Other characters, mainly her friends from New York, understand that Carrie’s desire to leave was prompted by more than just her inability to deal with the changes brought on by Mike’s accident.

“The Dive from Clausen’s Pier” is a great read. There are no exciting car chases, complex mysteries or glamorous locales, but it’s an interesting exploration into what makes us tick, and how we must learn to live with the choices we make.

Everyone is sure to have an interesting angle on the story, and I encourage readers to send me a note at Sunday Book Club, 1001 Virginia St. E, Charleston, WV 25301, or post your comments online in our forum at www.sundaybookclub.com.

To contact Regina C. Davis, use e-mail or call 348-7936.