Carry the One Pdf Summary Reviews By Carol Anshaw

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Carry the One Pdf Summary

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.

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Carry the One Review

H. Williams

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent novel with terrific language that requires careful consideration, but too many characters and not enough analysis
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2013

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In March 2013, the book discussion group met at The LGBT Center in NYC to discuss this book. We had a small group that generally agreed that it’s a good novel but not a terrific novel. Esther and I seemed to like it more than some of the other readers. We thought that much of the language was simple and concise, but offered big emotional impacts. Language and terms about addiction and astronomy are slipped in (if you start to notice them) but resonant throughout. Others thought that the language was too simple and straightforward. Some liked the interconnected stories but others wanted more complex stories: more detail about the individual lives, more connection between the initial horrifying accident and the lives that the characters lived, more analysis and cause-and-effect. We were all, however, able to point out individual sentences that we thought were spectacular.

We did question some of the minor characters (such as Carmen’s dog, Walter) and carefully described events (such as visit to the Paris hammam). We all agreed that the love affair between Alice and Maude was the main action of the novel, and that the affair with Diane (the doctor) at the end seemed rushed and maybe creepy. We also talked about why Olivia, the driver during the accident, is such a minor character in the novel.

Then we discussed the final sentence. Several readers didn’t notice it and then didn’t think it was significant but several of us thought that it’s absolutely important and subtly changes the entire novel, although we couldn’t quite decide how. (If you don’t get what I’m talking about, re-read the chapter “The Excellent Sandwich” and then the final chapter “The Opposite of Iceland,” paying careful attention to the clothes.) This is why you come to a book group and discuss a novel.

We also talked about modern novels, such as those written by Jonathan Franzen and Stephen King, that have large scopes and a huge number of vaguely related characters (such as this novel) rather than older, more focused novels (such as “Maurice” and “Giovanni’s Room,” which we just read). We also compared it to Iris Murdock novels, which are equally built on dramatic events but seem bigger and better. Readers in this group don’t seem to like these modern novels as much as they like more “classic” fiction.

Linda C. Wright

2.0 out of 5 stars Not worth the time
Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2012

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I read a review. A review in a national newspaper. A paper with a wonderful book section that I read regularly and admire for its candor. A review very unlike the ones I write in this blog that I like to think are genuine and from the heart. My reviews are not written to sell a book, but only to offer my opinion and interpretation of the written word so that you can make an informed choice on how to spend your reading time.

The review I read on Carry The One pulled me in hook, line and sinker. The story of a family impacted by a tragic accident drew me in. After Carmen’s shotgun wedding, her brother and sister get in a car with Olivia, the driver who is stoned out of her mind. On the dark rural roads the car ends up wrapped around a tree and a young girl walking along the road in the middle of the night is dead.

Carry The One follows the twists and turns of the siblings lives, each dealing in separate and different ways. The story had great possibilities for rich, deep characters and raw emotions, things I love in a novel. However Carry The One could not deliver. The story line spans many years and I struggled to know how much time had passed between the scenes. Based on the action I expected one thing to happen only to be told that I was in a totally different place in time.

This isn’t the first book I’ve read lately that felt the need to throw in the events of 9/11. I don’t even think Hemingway or Steinbeck could fully express the emotions of that day in a way that would touch me as a reader. It’s too big to undertake even for the expert writers. The characters here, had some drab discussion about it that might have been meant for me to see the burden they had been carrying all these years. Frankly at that point I could really care less about them. Any glimmer of hope I had that might have redeemed them by the end of the story was gone.

Someday I may learn the lesson. Don’t be dragged in by an enticing cover or a sparkling review. Carry The One is shallow and poorly written yet I was convinced it was the next great American novel. Next time I promise I’ll do my homework first, and slow down before taking only a second to download and investing hours in reading.

prisrob

TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE

4.0 out of 5 stars Intersection Of Joy and Tragedy
Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2012

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The wedding everyone will remember, not because of the participants, but because of the tragic accident that occurs, Carmen, the bride, Matt the husband, Alice, sister of the bride, Maude sister of the groom, Nick, brother of the bride, and Olivia, Nick’s friend and driver of the car.

They all carry the ramifications of the accident. Olivia, the most, she cops to the responsibility and serves time in prison. Nick becomes a drug addled adult, in and out of rehabs. Carmen is the do-gooder, always protesting and working for the down trodden. Alice becomes a famous painter and lover of Maude. They all move in and out of each other’s lives. Alice, Carmen, and Nick are the real players. They care for each other, and are in each others lives most of the time. We go from Wisconsin to Chicago, to California, to Paris and Amsterdam. They Each have other people, families, children, but it is these three who are the major players.

There is much happiness, and there is much grief. The title comes from Alice, who says: “Because of the accident, we’re not just separate numbers. When you add us up, you always have to carry the one.” Yet only Nick has the courage to stay in touch with the girl’s mother. It is a grief he can never find a way to live with.

There is superb writing, and there is humor, and there is the daily life. The book spans years in time, including 9/11, all the way up to the election of President Obama. A terrific book that gives us a little bit of everything.

About Carol Anshaw Author Of Carry the One pdf Book

Carol Anshaw is an American novelist and short story writer. Her books include Carry the One pdf book, Lucky in the Corner, Seven Moves and Aquamarine. Her stories have been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories in 1994, 1998, and 2012. She has an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts (1992). She has won a National Book Critics Circle Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, an NEA Grant, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, a Carl Sandburg Award and Society of Midland Authors Award. Her newest novel, Right after the Weather, is forthcoming in October from Simon & Schuster.

Anshaw is also a painter. She divides her time between Chicago and Amsterdam