Mendocino and Other Stories

Ann Packer's first collection of deft, quietly illuminating short stories focuses on men and women in their 20s and 30s whose lives, for all their ritual calm, don't quite fall into place. In the title story, three-way tensions reverberate during the weekend visit by and L.A. woman to her brother and his wife on their "idyllic" coastal farm. "Babies" is narrated by an unsentimental advertising writer who longs for a child-and whose co-workers are all pregnant. And at the beginning of...
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Ann Packer's first collection of deft, quietly illuminating short stories focuses on men and women in their 20s and 30s whose lives, for all their ritual calm, don't quite fall into place. In the title story, three-way tensions reverberate during the weekend visit by and L.A. woman to her brother and his wife on their "idyllic" coastal farm. "Babies" is narrated by an unsentimental advertising writer who longs for a child-and whose co-workers are all pregnant. And at the beginning of "Nerves," Charlie is eating a hot fudge sundae at 11 a.m., still crazy abut his estranged wife, and suddenly prey to sharp, mysterious pains. With an unerring eye for the small ways in which people reveal themselves, Ann Packer makes a powerful debut in Mendocino & Other Stories.