Packer's sterling collection of stories is framed by two novellas: "Walk for Mankind" about teenager Richard Appleby and his bittersweet relationship with Sasha Horowitz, a rebellious, risk-taking 14-year-old, who has a clandestine affair with a drug dealer; and, "Things Said or Done" set three decades later, when Sasha, now 51 and divorced, has become Richard's caretaker.

"Liz and Sarabeth were childhood neighbors in the suburbs of northern California, brought as close as sisters by the suicide of Sarabeth's mother when the girls were just sixteen. In the decades that followed - through Liz's marriage and the birth of her children., through Sarabeth's attempts to make a happy life for herself despite the shadow cast by her mother's act - their relationship remained a source of continuity and strength. But when Liz's...