you carry more than you think.

Carry the One by Carol Anshaw begins rather abruptly. In the hours following a wedding reception, a group of guests leave the wedding wasted and run over a ten-year-old girl on a back country road, killing her. Whoa. This accident is a defining moment for the novel's characters.

It was Carmen's wedding, and the story is told from three different perspectives, switching between Carmen and her two siblings Alice and Nick. Basically the novel deals with the twenty-five year aftermath of the accident, flashing back and forth between these siblings lives. This is not a conventional story, so those of you who don't find yourself hooked right away, keep trying. It is worth the effort.