"Right at the beginning of this book, something really, really terrible happens. I’m not going to tell you what, because spoilers, but suffice to say that the people involved—a small group of youngish adult siblings and friends—can never quite move past it and spend the next quarter century trying to make sense of its impact on their lives.
But don’t get the wrong idea, okay? I realize a premise like this makes the whole thing sound like a bit of a downer, but it isn’t. Really. This is the kind of book you'll read in 24 hours for the sheer joy of it. Carol Anshaw’s characters are as real as any I've read; they respond to what happens the way people would: clumsily, painfully, and with surprising moments of humor and grace."
Publisher Simon & Schuster
Publication Date 2012-10-23
Section New Titles - Paperback / Fiction / All Staff Suggestions / Fiction Suggestions / Serena L.
Format Paperback
ISBN 9781451656930
“When you add us up, you always have to carry the one.” Following a devastating moment in the hours after Carmen’s wedding, three siblings and their friends move through the next twenty-five years under its long shadow. Through friendships and love affairs; marriage and divorce; parenthood, holidays, 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. Whether they take refuge in art, drugs, social justice, or love, Carol Anshaw’s characters are sympathetic, funny, and uncannily familiar as they reflect back to us our deepest pain and longings, our joys, and our transcendent moments of understanding.
