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Good books, old friends

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By Kara Kvasnicka

Tuesday, November 29, -0001

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They are not real people, you remind yourself. But they could be. You could easily find yourself in their shoes. In which case, what would you do?

If you were Carrie Bell, the heroine of Ann Packer's best-selling novel The Dive from Clausen's Pier (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002, $24), how would you react when your fiancé, Mike Mayer, is permanently paralyzed by a miscalculated plunge into a deceptively shallow reservoir?

You are just 23-years-old, your whole life still in front of you. You had already begun to have doubts that Mike was your true soul mate before your customary carefree Memorial Day picnic together turns cataclysmic.

One of your final thoughts before having to confront the "unbearable" consequences of Mike's mistimed bravado had been, "I longed to feel again what I no longer felt: that he was just what I wanted." But you were numb, powerless to voice the words that might halt his last ditch effort to secure your affections.

You have been raised by a single mom, your father having skipped town when you were only three. You are not convinced you were ever attracted to Mike as much as you were the idea of belonging to his fully functional, Norman Rockwell portrait family.

You are restless. You do not want to abandon Mike or your best friend, Jamie Fletcher. However, they somehow belong more to your childhood than your future. You do not want to leave them behind. You do want to move on.

You love to sew. You make your own clothes and your friends praise their quirky originality. You dream of becoming a fashion designer. But can you realize such a daring ambition without leaving home?

You know you have an obligation to Mike, to stay at his hospital bedside while he gradually recovers. That is what everyone expects of you. You want to do the right thing. At the same time, you want to run away.

A high school friend has invited you to stay with him in New York City. If you go, perhaps you can renew your acquaintance with an intriguing guy, oddly nicknamed Killroy, whom you met at a dinner party.

What should you do?

Normally, I would consider it a waste of time to discuss a new book that has already received widespread media attention. You need no prompting from me to pursue the irresistible premise outlined above.

Yet, as those of you who have already read it know, it is impossible to breeze through this book without a second thought, without wanting to share your appreciation for Packer's amazing artistry.

Packer deftly draws us into an exhausting vortex of conflicting emotions from which she does not let us surface until we have finished the final chapter.

She knows we are eager to reach the ending, to find out what Carrie's ultimate decisions are. But such decisions are not easily arrived at, and Packer is in no hurry to reveal them. She forces us to walk, not run, to the finish line at a quiet and reflective pace. Along the way, she demands we draw every anguished breath Carrie does as she wavers between duty and desire.

Packer must fully expect readers to be polarized by the ending she chooses, to be equally divided into camps that will argue whether or not Carrie has done the right thing by both Mike and herself.

I can just imagine the lively debate in some American literature course. Why could not Isabel Archer in Henry James' A Portrait of a Lady find a man who was kind to her as well as her intellectual equal?

Why, for that matter, could not Lily Bart in Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth meet a sympathetic wealthy bachelor to pave her way to the top ranks of turn-of-the-20th-century New York society instead of weak, married men with jealous wives who propelled her slowly but surely to the bottom.

And, why did Carrie wait to articulate her ambivalent feelings about Mike until it would forever afterward be judged selfish and inappropriate to do so?

Carrie really does have rotten luck. Think about it.

Tragedy touches all of our lives, but it is usually kind enough not to intervene while we are charting the course our future will take. Most of us escape periods of lingering indecision completely unscathed. Not Carrie.

It is difficult to believe that this haunting coming-of-age story is only Packer's first novel. In addition to its compelling story line, every word, every phrase, is carefully considered and fraught with meaning. Its characters are both riveting and recognizable.

Carrie is a likable heroine and narrator because she makes no pretense to be anything other than what she is — human. And as such, she is susceptible to misjudgment and error.

Like Carrie, we can never learn enough about the maddeningly cryptic Killroy, also known as Paul Eliot Fraser. He is cynical to the point of rudeness one moment and then heartbreakingly tender the next.

Killroy is as secretive and uncommunicative as Mike is open and gregarious. He is as crippled emotionally as Mike is physically. Which one should Carrie save?

Mike should have no trouble earning our sympathies. Surely nobody deserves to pay such a high price for a moment of careless stupidity. We want Carrie to remain loyal to him. On the other hand, we do not want him to hold Carrie back.

Jamie and Rooster are fairly standard best friends to Carrie and Mike respectively. Pay closer attention to minor characters Lane Driscoll and Miss Wolf. Their cameo appearances in Carrie's life have a subtle but significant impact on her.

Lane is an aspiring poet and paid companion to Miss Wolf, "an elderly writer of some previous fame." Each have conflicting ideas about the spiritual tool kit an artist requires. Miss Wolf insists family is the enemy of artist.

Lane believes "the family is the artist. Just like the sky is, or all the books you've ever read."

If she is ever to achieve her full potential with needle and thread, Carrie must determine which theory works best for her.

Rounding out the novel is a keen sense of place. Madison, Wis., as depicted through Packer's palpable imagery, is a typical midwestern college town with typical Midwestern values.

It is the picture perfect place to plan a life with your high school sweetheart. You can hang out in its arty, eclectic downtown district while you are a student. Then, when you are ready to settle down, you can raise a family in one of its white picket fence suburbs.

No, Carrie's Madison cannot boast the diversity and potential for infinite new discovery Killroy's New York City can. Yet a trip to Fabrications, her favorite "boutiquey fabric store" is all Carrie needs to momentarily step out of the ordinary.

Understandably, Carrie wants new experiences beyond her heartland origins. Still, she does not deny their unmistakable stamp on her identity. Unlike Killroy, she does not turn up her nose at the thought of attending a thousand backyard barbecues.

I anxiously await Packer's follow up to her impressive full-length fiction debut. What treacherous new expedition into our collective soul will she lead us on? What engrossing new protagonists will be used as mirrors of our own hopes, dreams and frailties?

A little more insomnia will not hurt me. It is not as though I have good sleep patterns anyway.

Kvasnicka, a former East Village Magazine news editor, has been the magazine's contributing editor and research consultant since 1989. She is the librarian at the Genesee District Library's Goodrich Branch.

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