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Carry the One [Hardcover]

Carol Anshaw
3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)

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Book Description

6 Mar 2012

In Carry the One, Carol Anshaw explores the after effects of one night's terrible trauma on three siblings over 25 years.

In the early hours of the morning, following a wedding reception, a car filled with stoned, drunk and sleepy guests accidentally hits and kills a girl on a dark country road. For the next twenty-five years, the lives of those involved are subtly shaped by this tragic moment.

Through friendships and love affairs, marriage and divorce, parenthood, addiction, and the modest calamities and triumphs of ordinary days, Carry the One shows how one life affects another and how those who thrive and those who self-destruct are closer to each other than we'd expect.

'Here's passion and addiction, guilt and damage, all the beautiful mess of family life.Carry the Onewill lift readers off their feet and bear them along on its eloquent tide' Emma Donoghue

'Her deftly episodic novel of love, time and off-beat family life is warm, generous and wise. An enormously engaging novel' Daily Mail

'Carry The Oneis a finely crafted novel, full of phrases you want to cut out and keep, and characters you think you know. It is delicate in its touch, yet huge in its reach' Observer

'Superb . . . Anshaw sees her characters with startling clarity and no small helping of warmth and humour . . . Anshaw's writing [is] subtle, bemused, kind and smart, she nails moment after moment . . .Carry The Oneis a marvellous novel, grown-up, smart and emotionally intelligent about people who, like the rest of us, try but mostly fail to keep their ducks in a row' Patrick Ness, Guardian

'A tender tale of what happens to ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances' Marie Claire

'A funny, vivid and pingingly true story about longing and the pain of love. Anshaw conveys beefy emotions and life-changing events with the most gossamer of touches' Rachel Johnson, Vogue

'If you love Jonathan Franzen, you'll love this compelling book' Entertainment Weekly

Carol Anshaw is the author of Aquamarine, Seven Moves, and Lucky in the Corner. She lives in Chicago. www.carolanshaw.com

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster (6 Mar 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 9781451636888
  • ISBN-13: 978-1451636888
  • ASIN: 1451636881
  • Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 16 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,098,317 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

Her deftly episodic novel of love, time and off-beat family life is warm, generous and wise. An enormously engaging novel (Daily Mail )

Carry The One is a finely crafted novel, full of phrases you want to cut out and keep, and characters you think you know. It is delicate in its touch, yet huge in its reach (Observer )

Superb . . . Anshaw sees her characters with startling clarity, an acute alertness to nuance, and no small helping of warmth and humour . . . Anshaw's writing [is] subtle, bemused, kind and smart, she nails moment after moment . . . Carry The One is a marvellous novel, grown-up, smart and emotionally intelligent about people who, like the rest of us, try but mostly fail to keep their ducks in a row (Patrick Ness Guardian )

A tender tale of what happens to ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances (Marie Claire )

Here's passion and addiction, guilt and damage, all the beautiful mess of family life. Carry the One will lift readers off their feet and bear them along on its eloquent tide (Emma Donoghue )

Beautifully observed . . . [Anshaw] intimately dissects how one event or choice can alter the trajectory of a life, how a fork in the road can lead to wholly unexpected and divergent outcomes (Michiko Kakutani The New York Times )

A funny, vivid and pingingly true story about longing and the pain of love. Anshaw conveys beefy emotions and life-changing events with the most gossamer of touches (Rachel Johnson Vogue )

Anshaw's understated, casual tone is made delightful with small details.Vivid images hit home with finishing flourishes . . . Carry The One is an engaging narrative, eloquently told (FT )

Carol Anshaw is one of those authors who should be a household name . . . [a] fine, eloquent novel (USA Today )

Superb . . . [Anshaw] has a knack for capturing a personality in a single phrase (Financial Times )

Moving and engaging . . . Anshaw has written not only a funny, smart and closely observed story, but also one that explores the way tragedy can follow hard on celebration, binding people together even more lastingly than passion. (Sylvia Brownrigg The New York Times Book Review )

Words used to praise Anshaw's earlier novels - witty, warm, intimate, poignant - apply equally well to her most compelling book yet, a wholly seductive tale of siblings, addiction, conviction, and genius . . . Masterful in her authenticity, quicksilver dialogue, wise humour, and receptivity to mystery, Anshaw has created a deft and transfixing novel of fallibility and quiet glory (Booklist )

A brilliant feat of storytelling . . . one of the most intensely vibrant novels I've ever read (Boston Globe )

Funny, touching, knowing . . . a quiet, lovely, genuine accomplishment (Publishers Weekly )

Splendid . . . sits somewhere between a Jonathan Franzen novel and a collection of haiku (Entertainment Weekly )

Anshaw is that rare, brilliant, witty writer whose prose is rich and buttery, and whose plotting is as well-conceived and seamlessly executed as that of the most intricate thriller (Chicago Tribune )

If you love Jonathan Franzen, you'll love this compelling book (Entertainment Weekly )

Graceful and compassionate . . . Writing with rueful wit and a subtle understanding of the currents and passions that rule us, Anshaw demonstrates that struggling to do one's best, whatever the circumstances, makes for a life of consequence (People )

A fine novel . . . stunning . . . wise (TLS )

Anshaw submerges the reader in gorgeous detail (Independent )

Carol Anshaw's writing is cool and funny, outraged and sympathetic by turns. The book is full of sharp observations and memorable phrases (Literary Review )

Beautiful prose (Independent on Sunday )

A series of beautifully detailed snapshots . . . an arresting examination of three intersecting lives, forcefully told (Telegraph ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Carol Anshaw is the author of Aquamarine, Seven Moves, and Lucky in the Corner. She lives in Chicago. www.carolanshaw.com --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Tommy D TOP 100 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
This is the one that has got all `the U.S. talking' about it and when I read that I was a bit dubious, but now I have read the book I am a convert. This tells the story of a group of friends and family who are all attending a wedding. It starts in 1983 and there is more than just alcohol at the reception, so when it comes to going home time, not too many are really up for being the designated driver, but Olivia is.

Her lights aren't working properly so just on fog lamps she takes off and on the way home in the middle of nowhere they hit and kill a young girl. In the aftermath the mettle of some of the friends is seen in its true light and lot of them are found wanting. The book then takes us through their lives and their pasts for the next twenty five years. We have drug use, prison, familial hostility, bullying, lesbian relationships alternative folk music and oodles of guilt as well as a healthy dose of astro physics and art. The common thread running through the whole thing is how they did or did not deal with their part in the death of a child.

A lot of what takes place is the mundane and ordinary, the kind of things that are the geography and tapestry of every bodies lives. What makes it so engaging is the writing, Carol Anshaw get inside the characters and has a real feel for all of their emotions, whether rightly placed or being used as a shield from what ever one of lives travail's they are unable to face. There are no heroes and all the bad people are just ordinarily bad in many cases and as such there is a resonance in the simple truth that fills every page. That said actually quite a bit happens but as with all of us the milestones that we choose to define who we are can happen with great distance between them, this is the case here.

Carol Anshaw has received many plaudits for this work and I have to agree they are all deserved. This is a totally accessible book that has been crafted from simple observations and an understanding that can only come from having lived. By that living you will also have suffered and all of the sides of those emotions are on show here, this was simply a beautiful and compelling read, just simply brilliant - sorry the gush is now over.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Thirty years of guilt 23 Dec 2012
By Eleanor TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
It is 1983 and the day of Carmen's wedding. As she waves goodbye to the last of her guests, her siblings, sister-in-law, and two friends, she notices that they are driving with only their fog lights. The car journey ends in tragedy and the events of that night resonate through the years. "Carry the One" follows Carmen and her family over three decades, each chapter advancing the narrative a few years.

Carmen, a righteous and loving woman, is vividly drawn as are the other characters who come to life in such a way that the reader is anxious to know what happens next, rejoicing in their successes or hoping that things will take a turn for the better. Although the death with which the book opens haunts the characters it is not always to the fore of the narrative. Rather this is a slow, often funny, depiction of a group of people groping their way through life.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing 25 Oct 2012
By Old Hen VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
I had hoped the plotline of this novel would lead to a great story; unfortunately it didn't.

Take five young friends, stoned and/or drunk, but not fit to drive, tumble into a car to drive home from a wedding. Soon after their departure a 10-year old child is run over and killed. The novel follows the lives of these five people over the next twenty-five years. You would think that an event like this would leave a mark, but it doesn't appear to, other than with Alice, the artist, constantly painting the dead child as she imagines her to be in the present. Even then Alice is more preoccupied with Maude, her gay lover,than anything else. The characters aren't particularly likeable or compelling and overall I found it disappointig. What I had expected was really sharp insights into the way these peoples' lives were affected, but it actually doesn't appear to have affected them at all.

Whilst the idea behind this novel is good, it doesn't really go anywhere. Don't get me wrong.....the book is well written, but just failed to make an impression on me.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Read with interest
Book arrived quickly and in excellent condition. Written by an American author so some of the vocbulary and phrases more guessed at. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Jenny Wren
5.0 out of 5 stars 'When you add us up, you always have to carry the one'
Carol Anshaw's fourth novel 'Carry the One' begins with the bohemian wedding of Carmen and Matt in rural Wisconsin. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Isola
2.0 out of 5 stars A Truly Depressing Tale
The synopsis of this novel made me think that it would be an absorbing and an interesting study of the impact of one terrible event on the lives of those involved. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Brett H
3.0 out of 5 stars Good in parts
A lot of novels probably use a story line as a carrier for the author's wish to communicate wider, more abstract thoughts. Read more
Published 2 months ago by S. Thomas
3.0 out of 5 stars A good start
A good start .
There was not enough storyline to keep me interested during the whole book. It was on the whole a little bit dreary and negative
Published 2 months ago by christine k
1.0 out of 5 stars Jumps about
The blurb on the back of this book states "Discover the novel that's got the US talking". If this is true I can only imagine that the US is talking about how bad the book is. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Dave
2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointingly artificial
I didn't get on at all well with this book. I was expecting to enjoy it because it tackles interesting-sounding ideas, and attempts to explore important ideas about how lives... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Sid Nuncius
4.0 out of 5 stars Gritty and thought-provoking
This wasn't the book I was expecting to read. From the cover and the synopsis I thought it would be more of a Jodi Picoult type moral dilemma/emotional rollercoaster type of read. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Denise4891
3.0 out of 5 stars Carry the One
The premise of this book sounded very good, however for me the reality of it didn't quite live up the promise.

The book starts with the wedding of Carmen and Nick. Read more
Published 3 months ago by EssexReader
1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
I was so looking forward to reading this book but was so disappointed and found it very uninteresting. Read more
Published 4 months ago by A. Mcshane
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