The Dive from Clausen’s Pier (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Ann Packer
- First Published: 2002
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: 2002
- Setting: Madison, Wisconsin, and New York City
- Principal Characters: Carrie Bell, Mike Mayer, Jamie, Rooster, Simon, Kilroy, Mrs. Bell
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Freedom, New York, United States or Americans, Love or romance, Escapes, New York City, Twenty-first century, Friendship, Guilt, Women, Accidents, Loyalty, Ethics, Sick persons, Morality or morals, Hospitals, Isolation, 2000’s, Wisconsin
- Locales: New York, NY, Madison, WI
In most novels, there is a moment that irrevocably changes the lives of the characters who inhabit the pages of the book. In high school English classes, that moment is labeled “the crisis,” and usually it takes many pages of exposition to build to this moment. This is not the case in Ann Packer’s first novel, The Dive from Clausen’s Pier. In this story, the life-changing event takes place in a three-page preface before chapter 1, and everything else that happens in the book is in response to one tragic moment.
Carrie Bell is everybody’s girl next door. At...
[The entire page is 1874 words long]
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