The Dive From Clausen's Pier (2003) - Plot & Excerpts
I actually did not enjoy this book, and it definitely leaves a very bitter taste's in the mouth after you finish. The premise is that our heroine (hyperbole) Carrie Bell wants out of an 8 year relationship with her nearly perfect high school sweet heart Mike. However, Mike, in an attempt to impress her, paralyzes himself for life and leaves Carrie in a difficult position. (spoiler) Running away from the situation, Carrie flees to New York City (from Madison, WI) and begins a new relationship with someone she feels a deeper emotional and intellectual connection with. After pursuing her dreams and falling in love, she gets sucked back into the blackhole of Madison and abandons everyone who loves and has helped her in New York in favor of "trying to make things right" in WI. This was just an immensely frustrating plot line. When Carrie first moves to New York, you get excited for her - she has finally escaped her social confines, emerging from her chrysalis as a strong and beautiful butterfly ready to take on New York. You can feel the hope Ann Packer puts into the pages - Carrie seems so happy and at peace (mostly) with her life in New York. Yet, in the last 100 pages when Carrie decides to return to Madison to try to patch up a devastated friendship and tease Mike more, it is almost heart breaking. You watch this girl simply throw her life away because, for lack of better word, she is weak. She NEVER stands up for herself, and she simply lets other people guilt trip and manipulate her into conforming to her will. She ends up unhappy at the end with no best friend (even though they are speaking, they will never be able to regain what they had), no boyfriend, no money, no job, no peace of mind, and lots of regrets. Carrie Bell epitomizes the woman I hope never to become. This book does have its moments of clarity - Packer captures the heartbreak and overwhelming sense of insecurity of a girl released from a confining and doomed relationship. For someone just coming out of a relationship that they knew was not right, the first 2/3 of this book are empathetic and insightful and may offer comfort. However, the last 1/3 of the book is so morbidly depressing and weak that I would NOT recommend this to someone looking for hope after a long relationship. I really wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. People who have never been in a long term relationship will find this book to be trivial and nonsensical, people in relationships will find it depressing, and people out of relationships will find it frustrating. The only reason this book received a 2 star was because Ann Packer's writing style is captivating and well done. However, she deserves a sharp reprimand for such an unrealistic and incongruous ending.
I NEVER gush over books. This book was an all-time favorite in high school. I found it at my parents' house, excited to read it again, but I kept putting it off because I didn't want to ruin my high school memory of it.Once I finally picked it up, I was not disappointed. For the second time I just couldn't put it down.I love how real this book is. The best (and also most uncomfortable) part of this book is how much I identify with Carrie. I felt as if I might have reacted quite the same as she did to the accident. It reminds me of recent happenings in my life - people can't tell you how you should grieve. They aren't you.What Ann Packer does is amazing. She creates these characters who are quite average (like you and me), doing rather mundane things (like you and me), but draws you in with the reactions and emotions that you and I could very well feel in the same situation.Get out of my head Ann.I've read a lot of mediocre books lately, and I so so needed to reread this book. I think my adult self may like it even more than my high school self, if that's even possible. I found some 10 year old Post-its marking a few passages... this one I still love: It seems to me that we learn each other in stages: facts first, meanings later, like explorers who stumble on to bodies of water without knowing at first whether they've encountered fog-shrouded rivers or vast oceans. We press on until we know, but as we go something is lost: the new becomes old, and then taken for granted, and then forgotten.Go get this book!
What do You think about The Dive From Clausen's Pier (2003)?
Rarely have I cared so much about a character: Carrie Bell is faced with the gut-wrenching decision of staying with her boyfriend, Mike, of 7 years after he has become a quadriplegic. Making matters even more complicated, in the months just before the accident she had begun to fall out of love with Mike. Carrie is emotionally paralyzed with fear of making the wrong decision: "How much do we owe the people we love?...What I had discovered was that I couldn't give up my life for Mike--that how I saw it at the time, that's the choice I thought I had to make. And because I couldn't give up everything, I also thought I couldn't give up anything." These ruminations occur as she finally decides to drive on whim to New York, chasing after a gay high school friend who has moved there to be accepted and Kilroy, a man she happens to meet at a dinner, who immediately and incisively reads her. The inevitable romance in New York with Kilroy reminds me in style of Woody Allen's Manhattan--it's as much a love affair with city as it is with Kilroy. Yet the same person who could not stay on as the dutiful girlfriend with the paraplegic boyfriend, cannot quite restart her life in New York as a fashion designer and girlfriend of the beautiful yet indecipherable Kilroy. Carrie returns to her small home town to, as it were, set things straight. But it's much more complicated than she expected. And the decisions Carrie makes are what make this novel "hard" art instead of "soft" art, using the distinction Kilroy uses at the MoMA between Picasso and Matisse. And, I believe, this hard edge is what has many 30 something women (unofficial conclusion based off some Goodread reviews) hating Carrie and even the novel. I was frustrated, even devastated, but I never hated her; maybe it's easier as a man to step back and see her decisions as simply the complex weaving of human responsibility, desire, and identity.
—Ron Christiansen
****This review contains SPOILERS****This is the story of Carrie Bell, a recent college graduate who's life seems to be at a stand-still. She's got a fiance Mike, who she's been with since they were 14, a mediocre job at the University Library, a group of friends she's had since high school who are equally at a stand-still. But she begins to question her life. Just as she's about to ask, "Is this it? Is this the life I'm destined to lead?," tragedy strikes. Her fiance dives into shallow water an
—Sydney
Way back in the day, I used to read these terrible teen dramas by Lurlene McDaniel. Someone in the book either had cancer, was dying, or was just killed and I sobbed from the beginning of the book to the end. So I stopped reading those books.The Dive From Clausen's Pier was a grown-up Lurlene McDaniel' novelette. Well written? Yes. Engaging characters? Yes. An enjoyable read? Not quite. I could decide if I sympathized with the main character or hated her. The pivotal event happens so early in the book (i.e. page 5 or so) that I had no connection to the characters before I saw them "change" due to grave circumstances. One character is purposefully enigmatic, but as hard as it is for the heroine to get to know Kilroy, it is even harder for the reader to connect - or care.Somehow, I liked this book. It is smoothly written and it was nice to see the heroine take on New York City with wide, naive Midwestern eyes. But while I sympathized with Carrie Bell for the situations she found herself in, it did not seem like her actions were legitimate reactions to the events of her life.
—Amanda
