Carry Me
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Set during the decades between the First and Second World Wars, Carry Me is a devastating historical saga about war, love, and escape, from the Governor General’s Literary Award–winning author of The Law of Dreams and The O’Briens.
Carry Me begins in 1909 on the Isle of Wight, England, and follows Billy Lange, the son of the skipper of a racing yacht belonging to a wealthy German-Jewish baron. Over the course of his childhood, Billy becomes entranced by the baron’s daughter, the elusive and willful Karin von Weinbrenner.
Golden Edwardian summers are soon shattered by the First World War, and when Billy and Karin are reunited on the baron’s Frankfurt estate in the aftermath the two bond over their fascination with the Wild West novels of Karl May and shared passion for speed, jazz, and the nightclubs of Frankfurt and Berlin. A childhood friendship deepens into a complex love affair while society loses its moral bearings and Germany marches toward the Second World War. This time, Billy and Karin dream of escape — from Germany and from history.
A vivid and powerfully rendered epic encompassing the two great wars of the twentieth century, Carry Me is both a sweeping historical novel and a love story for the ages.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Behrens (The Law of Dreams) grounds his bittersweet escape-from-the-Nazis love story in seascapes, landscapes, and cityscapes, showing how culture and geography shape lives and determine character. The novel consists of Billy Lange's diary, along with assorted clippings and correspondence beginning in 1882, when Billy's grandfather Heinrich (known as Captain Jack) registers his sea-born son Heinrich (Buck) as a German citizen who grows up to become the German-Jewish Baron von Weinbrenner's racing skipper. Buck's son named Hermann but known as Billy grows up on the Baron's Isle of Wight retreat, his closest companion the Baron's daughter, Karin. During World War I, Buck is arrested and interned, while Billy and his mother move first to London, then Ireland. After the war, the Baron's patronage brings them to Germany. Karin enjoys Berlin nightlife, and Billy has unexpected prosperity working as a translator. But with Hitler on the rise, and the aging Baron unable to safeguard his family, employees, or possessions, Billy plans to escape with Karin. In scenes such as the Baron's funeral and a zeppelin raid, Behrens avoids sentimentality, evoking instead a subtle emotional mix. Likewise, good guys providing protection from bad guys find it more challenging than in old-fashioned westerns, and triumph over tragedy proves more complicated than in traditional family sagas. Behrens thereby revitalizes the war epic, substituting grand panoramas with realistic settings and great acts of heroism with small yet powerful acts of compassion.
