Harvard Book Store welcomes Ann Packer—author of the bestselling novels The Children’s Crusade and The Dive from Clausen’s Pier—for a discussion of her latest novel Some Bright Nowhere. She will be joined in conversation with J. Courtney Sullivan—New York Times bestselling author of Friends and Strangers and the Reese’s Book Club pick The Cliffs.
About Some Bright Nowhere
AN OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK
The bestselling, beloved author returns with her first novel in over a decade, an intimate and profoundly moving look at a long marriage and the ways in which a startling request can change a couple’s understanding of who they are, together and apart.
Eliot and his wife Claire have been happily married for nearly four decades. They’ve raised two children in their sleepy Connecticut town and have weathered the inevitable ups and downs of a long life spent together. But eight years after Claire was diagnosed with cancer, the end is near, and it’s time to gather loved ones and prepare for the inevitable.
Over the years of Claire’s illness, Eliot has willingly—lovingly—shifted into the role of caregiver, appreciating the intimacy and tenderness that comes with a role even more layered and complex than the one he performed as a devoted husband. But as he focuses on settling into what will be their last days and weeks together, Claire makes an unexpected request that leaves him reeling. In a moment, his carefully constructed world is shattered.
What if your partner’s dying wish broke your heart? How well do we know the deepest desires of those we love dearly? As Eliot is confronted with this profound turning point in his marriage and his life, he grapples with the man and husband he’s been, and with the great unknowns of Claire’s last days.
Ann Packer makes a triumphant return with this powerful novel that is tender and raw, visceral and unexpected. Emotionally vibrant and complex, Some Bright Nowhere explores the profound gifts and unexpected costs of truly loving someone, and the fears and desires we experience as the end of life draws near.
Praise for Some Bright Nowhere
“This beautifully written story is going to get you thinking about some things that really matter. The story leaves you questioning the obligations of marriage and the difference between male and female friendships, and one of the most significant of questions: How do you want to spend your last days?” — Oprah Winfrey
Readers, you will shed tears and talk long into the night about this book. What can we ask of one another? What can we give? What is love in the face of death? Profound and moving and real, Packer has written another stirring account of the heart.”—Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Less and Less Is Lost
“Some Bright Nowhere is a devastating novel that miraculously floats with the light and life it carries. I read it feverishly; I lived and mourned with its characters.” – Aysegül Savas, author of Long Distance and The Anthropologists
“Some Bright Nowhere is an exquisite gem of a novel, shot through with luminous prose and profound insight into the human heart. Trust me: you’ve never read a novel about marriage—about sacrifice and selfishness and soul-mending hope—quite like this one. I loved it.”—Tania James, author of Loot
“Some Bright Nowhere is a novel that draws you in deeply and holds you there. Ann Packer writes absorbingly about couples, together and apart, and about love, friendship, and the inevitability of saying goodbye. This is a heartbreaking novel that actually made me happy––happy to have known these characters and watched them work through the puzzle at the heart of the story, and to have lived with them in their world as long as I did. It’s a wonderful book.”—Meg Wolitzer, New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion
“Readers already know Ann Packer for her acutely sensitive novels of families in crisis, and her latest, Some Bright Nowhere, . . . takes on the anguish of a long-married couple whose deathbed conversations raise profound questions about love, commitment, and sacrifice.” — The Boston Globe
“We stay in the mystery of this couple, with its shades and shifts. And in the final pages, with their small, quiet turns, we have the readerly satisfaction of a good ending, that elusive and beckoning goal.” —The New York Times
Bios
Ann Packer is the author of five previous works of fiction, including the bestselling novels The Children’s Crusade and The Dive from Clausen’s Pier, which received the Kate Chopin Literary Award, among many other prizes and honors. Her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and in the O. Henry Prize Stories anthologies, and her novels have been published around the world. She divides her time among New York, the Bay Area, and Maine.
J. Courtney Sullivan is the New York Times best-selling author of the novels Commencement, Maine, The Engagements, Saints for All Occasions, Friends and Strangers (a Today Show Read With Jenna selection), and most recently, the Reese’s Book Club pick The Cliffs. Her work has been translated into seventeen languages. Sullivan’s writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, New York, Real Simple, and O: The Oprah Magazine, among many other publications. In 2017, she wrote the forewords to new editions of two of her favorite classic novels–Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two children.