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Carry the One by Carol Anshaw
Date Published: March 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-1451636888
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 272
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Publisher’s Book Summary: Carry the One begins in the hours following Carmen’s wedding reception, when a car filled with stoned, drunk, and sleepy guests accidently hits and kills a girl on a dark, country road. For the next twenty-five years, those involved, including Carmen and her brother and sister, connect and disconnect and reconnect with each other and their victim. As one character says, “When you add us up, you always have to carry the one.”
Through friendships and love affairs; marriage and divorce; parenthood, holidays, and the modest tragedies and joys 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. Deceptively short and simple in its premise, this novel derives its power and appeal from the author’s beautifully precise use of language; her sympathy for her very recognizable, flawed characters; and her persuasive belief in the transforming forces of time and love.
My Thoughts: Carmen is practical and decisive although she sometimes doubts her decisions later. The book opens at Carmen’s wedding reception. She’s not an ebullient, giddy bride. Carmen’s unsure about the marriage and now sees Matt, her new husband, as a stranger. Meanwhile, her sister, Alice, a passionate and impulsive artist, is locked away in a bedroom with the bridegroom’s sister, Maude. And Nick, their brother, is in another bedroom with his girlfriend Olivia, introducing some younger cousins to the wonders of mushrooms. A brilliant astronomer, Nick loves exploring the universe while high on hallucinogens and opiates. When Alice, Nick and the others drive off at the end of the night, no one is focused on the road or in any condition to drive although they all told Carmen they were fine. A short time later young Casey Redman is dead and the lives of the siblings and others are forever changed.
Carmen, Alice and Nick are amazingly real and relatable. They’re intelligent and successful but also flawed and damaged. They harbor pain and anger from a tough childhood at the hands of a nasty, unkind father, Horace and a mother, Loretta, who always sided with him. Carmen, Alice and Nick are bonded by their childhood experience and now by the death of Casey Redman. They grieve for her and cope with her death in different ways but she’s never far from their thoughts. Everything that happens in the lives of Carmen, Alice and Nick, from that day forward, is touched by Casey’s shadow.
Carol Anshaw has written a seemingly quiet, casual story that turns out to be powerful and emotionally complex. It depicts the myriad of ways the relationships and lives of Carmen, Alice and Nick are impacted by their pasts and particularly, by the death of a young girl, as the three grow and change over the course of 25 years. Anshaw writes beautifully and the pages of Carry the One are filled with Alice’s passion and intensity, Carmen’s stoicism and Nick’s nutty genius and the wit and sarcasm they share. It’s clear that Anshaw understands how human beings tick and cope with life and this understanding is depicted in her fantastic, intriguing and lovable characters. This is an absorbing book that grabs you and holds your attention until the last word. I only wish it was longer! I highly recommend this novel.
Carol Anshaw’s website.
Thank you to Simon & Schuster for an ARC copy of Carry the One.
First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros is a weekly meme hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea every Tuesday. In this meme, I share the opening paragraph(s) of a book I've decided to read based on the paragraph(s). I’m participating in Orange January hosted by The Magic Lasso. This is one of the books nominated for the Orange Prize that I plan to read. It’s received some wonderful reviews from other bloggers and I’m really looking forward to reading this book as well as several of the author‘s other books.
Don't forget to drop by Bibliophile By the Sea and read Diane's selection this week and be sure to visit and read the contributions of other participants in this terrific meme.
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
So this, said Kay to herself, is the sort of person you've become: a person whose clocks and wrist-watches have stopped, and who tells the time, instead, by the particular kind of cripple arriving at her landlord's door.
For she was standing at her open window, in a collarless shirt and a pair of greyish underpants, smoking a cigarette and watching the coming and going of Mr Leonard's patients. Punctually, they came — so punctually, she really could tell the time by them: the woman with the crooked back, on Mondays at ten; the wounded soldier, on Thursdays at eleven. On Tuesdays at one an elderly man came, with a fey-looking boy to help him: Kay enjoyed watching for them. She liked to see them making their slow way up the street: the man neat and dark-suited as an undertaker, the boy patient, serious, handsome — like an allegory of youth and age, she thought, as done by Stanley Spencer or some finicky modern painter like that.
After them there came a woman with her son, a little lame boy in spectacles; after that, an elderly Indian lady with rheumatics. The little lame boy would sometimes stand scuffing up moss and dirt from the broken path to the house with his great boot, while his mother spoke with Mr Leonard in the hall. Once, recently, he'd looked up and seen Kay watching; and she'd heard him making a fuss on the stairs, then, about going on his own to the lavatory.
"Is it them angels on the door?" she had heard his mother say. "Good heavens, they're only pictures! A great boy like you!"
Kay guessed it wasn't Mr Leonard's lurid Edwardian angels that frightened him, but the thought of encountering her. He must have supposed she haunted the attic floor like a ghost or a lunatic.
What are your thoughts about these 2 opening paragraphs? Would you read this book based on these paragraphs?
Welcome to Mailbox Monday, a weekly meme, hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books for the month of January, originally created and hosted by Marcia of A girl and her books. Below are the titles I received for review, purchased, or otherwise obtained over the course of the past week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists! I didn’t receive any review books this week but I did receive two books I’m really looking forward to reading!
Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deidre Madden (sent by a friend after she learned I am participating in Orange January)
It is the height of summer, and celebrated actor Molly Fox has loaned her house in Dublin to a friend while she is away performing in New York. Alone among all of Molly's possessions, struggling to finish her latest play, she looks back on the many years and many phases of her friendship with Molly and their college friend Andrew, and comes to wonder whether they really knew each other at all. She revisits the intense closeness of their early days, the transformations they each made in the name of success and security, the lies they told each other, and betrayals they never acknowledged. Set over a single midsummer's day, Molly Fox's Birthday is a mischievous, insightful novel about a turning point--a moment when past and future suddenly appear in a new light.
Solar by Ian McEwan (sent by the same great friend)
Michael Beard is in his late fifties; bald, overweight, unprepossessing – a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. An inveterate philanderer, Beard finds his fifth marriage floundering. When Beard’s professional and personal worlds are entwined in a freak accident, an opportunity presents itself, a chance for Beard to extricate himself from his marital mess, reinvigorate his career and very possibly save the world from environmental disaster.
Solar is an engrossing and satirical novel which focuses on climate change. It is a stylish new work by one of the world’s greatest living writers about one man’s ambitions and self-deceptions.
I’m slowly getting back into the swing of blogging regularly after being largely away from my computer for most of the last month or so. It’s a relief not to feel exhausted from trying to sit and hold my head up. Thinking back on it, it’s a little frightening how tired I felt from the pneumonia. It’s such a relief to feel well again. Now I just have to work the laziness - from forcing myself to continue to rest once I began to feel better - out of my system. It’s kind of amazing how quickly your brain - mine, anyway! - can get used to not thinking or being used!
I have a long list of reviews to finish and a shorter list of reviews that need to be written in full. I worked on several while recuperating but when I read what I thought was my finished review I didn’t like much of what I’d written! Ugh! I hate when that happens. So I figure I will post reviews of books I’ve read recently and intersperse reviews of older reads every few days or something like that. I’m trying to shorten my reviews a bit, too, a least while I have so many to work on.
I finished The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Shine which turned out not to be as light a book I expected. It’s very good and has some wonderfully flawed, dysfunctional characters! I also finished Carry The One by Carol Anshaw, also very good. My neighbor returned Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (yay!) so I am reading it again. I wasn’t that far into it before so I decided to start at the beginning. It’s so worth it, anyway! I’m also reading All the Flowers of Shanghai by Duncan Jepson. I’ve read several reviews of this book and, although I’m not exactly sure what to expect from this book, I know it’ll be an interesting reading experience! I signed up for a group read of The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano hosted by Richard at his blog, Caravana de recuedos. I didn’t get to start reading the book last month like I wanted to because I was sick so I’m not sure I’ll finish by the end of January (700+ pages!) but I’m enjoying what I’ve so far read.
So that’s about it for now. Life’s been very quiet in my world the last couple of months, of course. I’ll leave you with this fun tidbit...there may be a new small, furry addition to our family! Stay tune as for updates as the situation develops...! lol
Have a wonderful Sunday!
Happy Reading!
This is Hennessey. She's been with us since she was about 6 months old, about 5 years. She doesn't like living inside with other cats so she spends much of her time outside, dropping by frequently for meals and/or a cat nap. When the temperatures drop and it gets cold, she comes in for several days at a time. She hisses at the other cats frequently, not caring that she may have taken over their sleeping spot or simply because she thinks they're standing or sitting too close to her! She can be distracted by any toy. though, and loves to play with balls or string toys.
Hennessey, a small cat, is the only cat I've known who puts on 5+ pounds every winter, becoming noticeably chunky! When spring time comes around she slims down again! The two photos of her sleeping sort of show her normal size and then chubby. I'm going to try to get better photos of her now while she's a fatty!
Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce on At Home with Books. It's easy to participate, just post a photo taken by you, a friend or a family member and link to the Mister Linky at the bottom of Alyce's post.
Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal by Conor Grennan
Pages: 304
Published Date: December 27, 2011
Publisher: William Morrow
ISBN: 978-0061930058
Genre: Non-Fiction; Memoir
Rating: 5 out of 5
Book Summary: An astonishing testament to true courage, the transformative power of love, and the ability of one man to make a real difference.
In search of adventure, twenty-nine-year-old Conor Grennan embarked on a yearlong journey around the globe, beginning with a three-month stint volunteering at an orphanage in civil war–torn Nepal. But a shocking truth would forever change his life: these rambunctious, resilient children were not orphans at all but had been taken from their families by child traffickers who falsely promised to keep them safe from war before abandoning them in the teeming chaos of Kathmandu. For Conor, what started as a footloose ramble became a dangerous, dedicated mission to unite youngsters he had grown to love with the parents they had been stolen from—a breathtaking adventure, as Conor risked everything in the treacherous Nepalese mountains to bring the children home.
Little Princes is a true story of families and children, and what one person is capable of when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. At turns tragic, joyful, and hilarious, Little Princes is a testament to the power of faith and the ability of love to carry us beyond our wildest expectations.
My Thoughts: Conor Grennan didn't count on the powerful impact the children at Little Princes Children's Home in Godawari, Nepal would have on him when he initially committed to volunteer there for three months in 2004. His motivation for volunteering with the orphans of Nepal. Grennan also figured it was a good excuse for his year long trip around the world following his stint at the orphanage. The first few pages of Little Princes was difficult to get through because Grennan, although candid, is so obnoxious, arrogant and immature I wanted to throw the book across the room! In fact, when Grennan is dropped off outside the orphanage on the day he's supposed to start his volunteer work, he makes his reluctance to be with the children so clear, I wondered if he was going to bail on his promise. When he drags himself through the gate into Little Prince's property, it's the first inkling that there might be a decent guy at Grennan’s core.
Grennan becomes so fond of and connected to the children during his first three months at Little Princes he's reluctant to leave the night before he’s to depart for his trip around the world . One of the boys, Anish, asks Grennan when he will return to the orphanage. He initially tells them he doesn't know, maybe in a year. Grennan then realizes how sad he is to be leaving the children and how truly happy he's been in Godawari with them. He also feels as responsible to and for the eighteen children living in the orphanage as if he was their parents. Grennan tells Anish and the other children that he will return after a year. A promise he gladly keeps.
Grennan still believes that the children living at Little Princes Children's Home are orphans when he returns to volunteer for another 3 months in January 2006. Shortly after returning to Godawari, Grennan and his fellow volunteer and good friend, Farid, learn the children at Little Princes are not orphans when the mother of two of the children shows up at the orphanage looking for her boys, Nuraj and Krish. These boys and the other children believed their parents were dead. To Grennan and the other's total surprise, the parents of most of the children are actually living in their respective villages around Nepal. Their children were taken by a child trafficker who promised parents he would keep their children safe from Maoist rebels, who abducted children and forced them to fight against the government, in return for a large sum of money. The trafficker then pocketed the money, mistreated the children and abandoned them or sold them into domestic slavery. Grennan's dismay upon hearing the truth is evident as he relays the events of the day he learns the truth about the children. He also feels even more responsibile for the children after hearing how they were treated and deceived.
Grennan writes with a refreshing honesty and humility about his decision to try to find the families of the children living at Little Princes Children's Home. He is also concerned about seven children abandoned by the child trafficker with the mother of Nuraj and Krish, despite the fact that she has no means for feeding or clothing them. When he returns to Jersey City, NJ to get a job and make a life for himself, Grennan shares how difficult it was to move on with his life. He listened to news about the situation in Nepal constantly and emailed with several people he's come to know while in Nepal. While he's perfecting his resume and researching companies and organizations to interview with, Grennan receives disturbing news about some of the children in Nepal. He's forthright in relaying how clearly dismayed he is by the news as well as how strong a sense of responsibility he feels for these children. Grennan decides to return to Nepal. But unlike his often rash, impulsive self, Grennan realizes with the help of Farid, he'd be foolish to return without a solid, good plan of action on behalf of the children in Nepal. This leads to Grennan's idea to form a nonprofit organization, Next Generation Nepal (NGN) and to search for the families of the children at Little Princes and more.
Little Princes is a remarkable, heart-breaking and heart-warming book. Grennan tells the story of the children and NGN with honesty, humor and integrity that made me cry, laugh, feel intense anger and much sadness. It's also an inspiring story full of hope and promise, great kindness, selflessness and love. The children about whom Grennan writes with respect, admiration and love are simply amazing. They are unbelievably resilient and survivors of terrible loss and pain. They are heroes. The other star of this book is Conor Grennan. He is still slightly rash and impulsive by the end of Little Princes but he's a very different man than the one who initially volunteered with orphans in Nepal only in order to impress the ladies. Over the course of this story, Grennan grows into a mature, responsible, caring and selfless person who willingly risks his life to reunite the children of Little Princes Children's Home with the parents and families they never expected to see again. This well-written, emotional and candid book is one I recommend to everybody.
About the Author:
Conor Grennan, author of the memoir Little Princes, spent eight years at the EastWest Institute (EWI), both in Prague and the EU Office in Brussels, where he served as Deputy Director for the Security and Governance Program.
At the East/West Institute, Conor developed and managed a wide variety of projects focusing on issues such as peace and reconciliation in the Balkans, community development in Central Eastern Europe, and harmonizing anti-trafficking policy at the highest levels government in the European Union and the former Yugoslavia.
Conor left EWI in 2004 to travel the world and volunteer in Nepal. He would eventually return to Nepal and found Next Generation Nepal, an organization dedicated to reconnecting trafficked children with their families and combating the root causes of child trafficking in rural villages in Nepal. He was based in the capital of Kathmandu until September 2007 where he was the Executive Director of Next Generation Nepal.
Conor now serves on the Board of Next Generation Nepal, together with his wife, Liz. He is a 2010 graduate of the NYU Stern School of Business, where he was the President of the Student Body. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and son, Finn, and a soon-to-be baby girl.
See Conor's Website and his organization, Next Generation Nepal. Conor is also available on Twitter and Facebook.
Thank you to TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read and review Little Princes and to William Morrow for a copy of this book.
Welcome to Mailbox Monday, a weekly meme created by Marcia from A girl and her books. Mailbox Monday is being hosted by At Home with Books this first week of 2012! Below are the titles I received for review, purchased, or otherwise obtained last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!
Night Swim by Jessica Keener (for review)
The Ruins of Us by Keija Parssinen (for review)
All I Did was Shoot My Man by Walter Mosley (for review)
The Lonely Polygamist by Bradley Udall (Gift)
The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen (Gift)
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