From Publishers Weekly
Packer's stories feature 30-something men and women who wake up one morning to find their lives have taken quite unexpected, and not really desirable, turns. In "Babies," unmarried Virginia pines away on the sidelines as her co-workers blossom into long-awaited pregnancies. Finally, when her good friend Sam gives birth, Virginia visits the new mother and baby and must face her deep longing for a child: "A real baby. I touch her cheek; it's so incredibly soft and pink and warm . . . I can feel the warmth of her body . . . all the way to my breast . . . there are tears rolling down my face." Packer draws the reader into the frustrating stalemates that engulf her characters, but she is not afraid to inject a bit of gentle humor along the way. Hypochrondriac Charlie ("Nerves"), who can't seem to develop any enthusiasm for living, is losing his wife little by little. Perhaps her friend Kiro is the reason. "This is all about Kiro? Jesus, Linda--too bad I'm not some fastidious little Japanese architect, is that it? He probably doesn't even have any hair on his chest." The stories are rich in detail and concentrate on the unexpressed emotions festering under the surface of each character's thin skin. Mendocino is a find, and Packer gives voice to the angst of the '90s.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Packer's debut collection of ten stories previously published in the New Yorker, Ploughshares, Prize Stories 1992: The O. Henry Awards, etc., reveals a sharp eye for the myriad ways humans deceive themselves, though her humor can be smothered by her 30- ish, middle-class protagonists' very prosaic lives. In ``Mendocino,'' a single woman visiting her brother and his irritating Northern California girlfriend is forced to confront the end of their shared childhood and the beginning of her sibling's life as a man. ``Nerves'' shows a New Yorker transplanted to San Francisco licking his wounds after his wife abandons him for her boss. In ``Babies,'' an unmarried advertising copywriter's growing case of baby lust overwhelms her professional and personal lives. The narrator of ``Horse'' recalls her attempt the year her father died to transform herself from a brainy, introverted ninth-grader into a popular pompom girl. The characters in these and Packer's other six stories tend toward the earnest and serious, although their attention to routine often blinds them to the subterranean feelings that ultimately redirect their lives. In her strongest pieces--including ``Mendocino,'' ``Horse,'' and ``The Glass House,'' in which a newlywed obsesses over the suicide of her home's previous owner--Packer's clear, steady prose peels back surface layers to reveal the mechanisms behind pain and sadness. Her few weaker tales--``Ninety,'' a chronicle of the traditional outdoor birthday bash thrown for an elderly man by his family; and ``Hightops,'' in which a young drifter witnesses the dissolution of his friends' marriage--never manage to reveal the human emotions underneath inconsequential conversation. Still, often arresting, in spite of the bland surroundings. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
