- Ann Packer

Some Bright Nowhere

By Ann Packer

‘A heartbreaking novel’ MEG WOLITZER

‘Profound and moving and real’ ANDREW SEAN GREER

‘A triumph’ RUFI THORPE

‘Unforgettable’ J. COURTNEY SULLIVAN

‘Exquisite’ TANIA JAMES

Tracing the final days of a long marriage, Some Bright Nowhere asks deep questions about our human capacity for love and understanding in the face of the unknown.

What if your partner’s dying wish broke your heart?

Eliot and his wife Claire have been happily married for nearly four decades. They’ve raised two children in a sleepy Connecticut town and have weathered the inevitable ups and downs that come with a long life together. Now, eight years into Claire’s cancer diagnosis it’s time to move to the next phase, to gather their loved ones and prepare for what comes next.

Over the years of Claire’s illness, Eliot has willingly – lovingly – shifted into the role of caregiver, even growing to appreciate the intimacy and tenderness in the transition from husband to something more layered and complex. 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.

Author: Ann Packer
Format: Hardback
Release Date: 12 Feb 2026
Pages: 224
ISBN: 978-0-00-873508-1
Price: £16.99, £16.99 (Export Price) , €None
Ann Packer was born in Stanford, California, in 1959, and grew up near Stanford University, where her parents were professors. She attended Yale University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has received fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Michener-Copernicus Society, and the National Endowment for the Arts.She is the acclaimed author of two collections of short fiction, Swim Back to Me and Mendocino and Other Stories, and three bestselling novels, The Children’s Crusade, Songs Without Words, 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.

‘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 -

'A devastating novel that miraculously floats with the light and life it carries. I read it feverishly; I lived and mourned with its characters' Ayşegül Savaş, author of The Anthropologists -

‘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, author of The Female Persuasion -

‘Readers, you will shed tears and talk long into the night about this book … Profound and moving and real, Packer has written another stirring account of the heart’ Andrew Sean Greer, author of Less -

‘A novel so psychologically insightful it feels dangerous, written in prose beautiful enough to get you drunk … A triumph’ Rufi Thorpe, author of Margot’s Got Money Troubles -

‘I couldn’t stop reading this heartbreaking, heart-expanding novel, and I wept at the end … Unforgettable’ J. Courtney Sullivan, author of The Cliffs -