Review
"Carry Yourself Back to Me is a beautifully written, thoroughly engaging novel. Deborah Reed's prose is lyrical, elegant, and vivid—she is a standout among new American novelists." --Jessica Anya Blau, author of The Summer of Naked Swim Parties and Drinking Closer to Home
"Deborah Reed has written here a novel peopled with real, flesh-and-bone characters—men and women both as good and delightfully flawed as our best friends, our spouses, ourselves. And the icing on this cake is Reed's lucid, lovely prose. Carry Yourself Back to Me is, simply, a pleasure to read." --Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, author of This Life She's Chosen and Swimming with Strangers
"Carry Yourself Back to Me marries gorgeous and wise prose with a can't-help-but-read-one- more-chapter plot. In it, Reed weaves a complex story of love and longing that's mysterious, intelligent, and full of heart. She had me from page one." --Cheryl Strayed, author of the novel Torch, and Wild, a memoir
"Deborah Reed writes beautifully about the interlocking puzzles of romantic and family love and the patterns that play out from generation to generation. While her protagonist is a master of the sad song, Reed achieves a symphonic effect—rich, intense, and surprisingly joyful." --Dawn Raffel, author of Carrying the Body and Further Adventures in the Restless Universe
"Deborah Reed takes a long look at love in this graceful novel. The kind of love that ravages and lays waste to her characters, and the kind of love that might finally save us all." -Bonnie Jo Campbell author of Once Upon a River and National Book award finalist for American Salvage
"Deborah Reed has written here a novel peopled with real, flesh-and-bone characters—men and women both as good and delightfully flawed as our best friends, our spouses, ourselves. And the icing on this cake is Reed's lucid, lovely prose. Carry Yourself Back to Me is, simply, a pleasure to read." --Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, author of This Life She's Chosen and Swimming with Strangers
"Carry Yourself Back to Me marries gorgeous and wise prose with a can't-help-but-read-one- more-chapter plot. In it, Reed weaves a complex story of love and longing that's mysterious, intelligent, and full of heart. She had me from page one." --Cheryl Strayed, author of the novel Torch, and Wild, a memoir
"Deborah Reed writes beautifully about the interlocking puzzles of romantic and family love and the patterns that play out from generation to generation. While her protagonist is a master of the sad song, Reed achieves a symphonic effect—rich, intense, and surprisingly joyful." --Dawn Raffel, author of Carrying the Body and Further Adventures in the Restless Universe
"Deborah Reed takes a long look at love in this graceful novel. The kind of love that ravages and lays waste to her characters, and the kind of love that might finally save us all." -Bonnie Jo Campbell author of Once Upon a River and National Book award finalist for American Salvage
Product Description
Famed alt-country artist Annie Walsh has more than enough reason to sing her version of the blues, including a broken heart, a stalled career, and a troubled family. Annie seeks refuge from an upended love affair with her producer, Owen Pettybone, by sequestering herself at home with her old dog Detour, surrounded by a lush Florida tangelo grove. There, she spends her days furiously sanding down the house’s every veneer in a vain attempt at erasing the painful memory of the love she lost. Soon, however, this quiet, small town existence—far from recording studios, ardent fans, and affairs of the heart—comes crashing down around her. A violent murder connected to her brother Calder threatens to tear her family apart and forces Annie to shore up her loyalties and uproot profound disappointments from her distant past. The evidence stacks against Calder, compounded by his lifelong affliction with Tourette syndrome that causes some in the community to cast aspersions on the soundness of his mind.
As the circumstances converge to challenge lifetime ties and forge unexpected new bonds, this soulful, stirring novel shifts its narrative from an imperiled and ever-changing present, where each hour brings an unforeseen and unwelcome piece of news, to the poignant childhood days of first allegiances and life-altering loss. Like a fine and forlorn love ballad, the gifted, conflicted Annie lulls the reader into a journey through love and loss that mines the mysterious, and, at times, paradoxical rhythms of the human heart. As vibrant as Annie's treasured tangelo grove, Carry Yourself Back to Me cultivates an always tender, sometimes tart, portrait of one family’s regret and redemption. Inflected with melancholy and redeemed by melody, this deeply affecting novel is certain to strike a resonant chord with music fans and lovers of fine fiction everywhere.
As the circumstances converge to challenge lifetime ties and forge unexpected new bonds, this soulful, stirring novel shifts its narrative from an imperiled and ever-changing present, where each hour brings an unforeseen and unwelcome piece of news, to the poignant childhood days of first allegiances and life-altering loss. Like a fine and forlorn love ballad, the gifted, conflicted Annie lulls the reader into a journey through love and loss that mines the mysterious, and, at times, paradoxical rhythms of the human heart. As vibrant as Annie's treasured tangelo grove, Carry Yourself Back to Me cultivates an always tender, sometimes tart, portrait of one family’s regret and redemption. Inflected with melancholy and redeemed by melody, this deeply affecting novel is certain to strike a resonant chord with music fans and lovers of fine fiction everywhere.
