Carry the One by Carol Anshaw

Carry the One by Carol Anshaw

Simon & Schuster, 2012.

Overview: Hooo boy, this one's a downer. After a self-imposed shotgun wedding, the groom's sister, the bride's sister and brother,  and a friend and her married lover all pile into a car driven by the extremely high new girlfriend of the bride's brother, and she hits and kills a ten year old girl. As you might expect, the guilt all the connected parties feel shapes their lives, and determines the course of the novel, which covers the next 25 years.

My reaction: This book is utterly tragic. I spoiled the entire book for the Lesbrarian, since she wasn't planning to read it, and it probably took me ten minutes to list all of  the depressing things that happen in it. I swear that there is not a single completely happy page. That said, this book was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for a reason! (The announcement of the winner is June 3rd.) While it was extremely dark throughout, Anshaw's writing brought wonderfully authentic characters to life, and sprinkled the book with humor that never overwhelmed the sadness. In other words, don't read this for the laughs; while I doubt I could have kept reading without those little glimmers of light, I felt like I was being sucked down deeper and deeper by the characters' intense guilt and unhappiness with every chapter I read. I'll tag this as recommended since it was great writing, but with the caveat that it's not going to be a fun read! (Sometimes un-fun reads are necessary  of course, and if you need that now, here's a great one!)