Carry Me
A Novel
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4.1 • 7 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
A devastating novel of war, love, and escape from the award-winning author of The Law of Dreams and The O’Briens
During childhood summers on the sunstruck Isle of Wight in the years before the First World War, Billy is entranced by Karin, the elusive daughter of a German-Jewish industrialist. Reunited on a Frankfurt estate in that war’s hungry aftermath, Karin and Billy become fascinated with tribal rituals found in the Wild West stories of Karl May, whose Winnetou tales are among the most popular books published in Germany. Coming of age in Frankfurt and Berlin, Karin and Billy share a passion for speed, jazz, and nightclubs. They also share a fantasy of escape—from darkening Germany, from history—to El Llano Estacado, the high plains of Texas and New Mexico, vividly reimagined in May’s fiction.
Intriguing characters braid this intricate and harrowing story together, from golden Edwardian summers to London under Zeppelin attack, Ireland on the brink of its War of Independence, and Germany collapsing into the Hitler era. As a society loses its civic and moral bearings, a childhood friendship deepens into a love affair with extraordinarily high stakes. Brilliantly conceived and elegantly written, Carry Me is an epic for grown-ups, an unusual love story, and a lucid meditation on Europe’s violent twentieth century.
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.
