Carry the One

Starred review from November 7, 2011
The one that must be carried when the Kenney siblings add themselves up is the girl who was hit and killed when Nick and Alice were driving home, stoned and stupid, from their sister Carmen’s wedding. That’s the first chapter: the rest of the novel and the rest of their lives—sex and drugs and prison visits, family parties and divorce, raising teenagers, painting, politics, and addiction—play out with that guilt and loss forever in the background. Anshaw has a deft touch with the events of ordinary life, giving them heft and meaning without being ponderous. As the siblings’ lives skip across time, Carmen’s marriage, shadowed by the accident, falls apart; painter Alice’s career moves forward unlike her life, as she remains stuck on the same woman, her former sister-in-law; and astronomer Nick fights, with decreasing success, his craving for drugs. Funny, touching, knowing—about painting and parents from hell, about small letdowns and second marriages, the parking lots where people go to score, and most of all, about the ways siblings shape and share our lives—Anshaw (Seven Moves) makes it look effortless. Don’t be fooled: this book is a quiet, lovely, genuine accomplishment.

February 1, 2012
From a 1983 wedding through Election Day 2008, Anshaw (Lucky in the Corner, 2002, etc.) tracks a Chicago family unsettled by a fatal accident. It's no accident that the driver of the car that kills 10-year-old Casey Redman is the extremely stoned girlfriend of Nick, brother of the bride. Nick's growing addiction is one of the subplots in a tender but often somber story centered on his family. His sister Carmen, whose marriage to Matt sets the plot in motion (and doesn't last long), is a political activist, marginally more acceptable to their deeply conventional mother Loretta than sibling Alice, an artist and lesbian who suffers an agonizing passion for Matt's sexually conflicted sister Maude. At least Carmen produces a child, while Alice has made the mistake of competing with their father Horace, an egocentric, domineering painter. Olivia, the stoned driver, goes to jail and straightens up; for a while after she gets out, it seems she'll keep Nick in line, but he loves getting high too much. Nick, Alice and Carmen are all haunted by memories of the dead girl--Alice knows her series of paintings of Casey are her best work but refuses to show them--yet Anshaw doesn't suggest the accident fundamentally changed the arcs of their lives; her understanding of human fallibility and existential contingency is too subtle for that kind of artistic determinism. Instead, she quietly follows her characters through the usual stuff of growing up and growing older: marriages, breakups, material success and spiritual uncertainty. Not since Roxana Robinson's Cost (2008) has a novel so bluntly depicted the impact of addiction on a family, but that isn't the whole story here. Loving but judgmental Carmen and skittish but fundamentally sound Alice have their own odysseys to pursue; Carmen's evolving relationships with Gabe, son from her first marriage, and with Rob, the second husband who's not at all what she thought she wanted, are particularly sensitively drawn. Sharply observed and warmly understanding--another fine piece of work from this talented author.

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October 15, 2011

Loopy from drugs, liquor, and the general excitement, the last guests to leave a wedding reception hit a girl on a dark country road, killing her instantly and changing their lives forever. Big buzz already; look for a possible breakout.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 1, 2012
Words used to praise Anshaw's earlier novels (Seven Moves, 1996; Lucky in the Corner, 2002)witty, warm, intimate, poignantapply equally well to her most compelling book yet, a wholly seductive tale of siblings, addiction, conviction, and genius. This tough and tender comedy of misplaced love and beguiling characters begins with a wedding. Pregnant Carmen, a tireless professional do-gooder, is marrying Matt, a volunteer at the suicide hotline she runs. Nick, her crazy astronomer brother, is wearing a wedding dress; his date, Olivia, is wearing a tux; and they've brought enough drugs to get all of Wisconsin stoned. Carmen's sister, Alice, an artist, falls for Matt's sister, Maude. Utterly wasted, Nick, Olivia, Alice, Maude, and a folksinger start driving back to Chicago and strike and kill a young girl. Forever after, they are subjected to the relentless mathematics of guilt: When you add us up, you always have to carry the one. As the years unspool, Alice, frustrated in love, attains fame, even though she hides her best work. Heroically generous Carmen's first marriage quickly fizzles, but her son and, eventually, stepdaughter, are hilarious and wonderful. Sweet, tortured, cosmically gifted Nick remains epically self-destructive. Masterful in her authenticity, quicksilver dialogue, wise humor, and receptivity to mystery, Anshaw has created a deft and transfixing novel of fallibility and quiet glory.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)