In Carry Me, Peter Behrens (The O'Briens) writes a fresh story of Europe between 1910 and 1938, an era of war and political turmoil. Told through two extended families and in locales including the idyllic Isle of Wight, Germany and the United States, the novel features characters responding to their circumstances with compassion and hopefulness.
Narrator Billy Lange opens with "This will become the story of a young woman, Karin Weinbrenner," the woman he loves. Their parents reflect the century's conflicts: Billy's father, "Buck" Lange, is German Irish, and his mother, Eilin, is Irish Catholic, while Karin's parents, who employ the Langes, are Baron von Weinbrenner, a Jewish German millionaire, and his wife, an Irish Protestant aristocrat. "Birthplaces, nationality--such details have consequences in this story."
Chapters move among eras as Billy, Karin and their parents live through one war and move inexorably toward the next. After opening with brief family history from 1884 to 1913, Carry Me fast-forwards to 1938 and a letter advising Billy to examine his "attitude to the national and racial developments in our Germany." Billy and Karin, their lives entwined from childhood, fantasize about the American West of Karl May's cowboy novels. By 1938, Hitler is fully in charge, pushing toward war. "This all happened before I or anyone else had watched half a century's worth of films about secret police and Nazis and the brutality of ordinary 'decent' men in uniforms, so I didn't recognize the situation, I didn't know the story line." Billy convinces Karin to leave Germany for the States.
"In 1945 I found myself alive on the other side of history," Billy reveals, summarizing events through 1977. Carry Me's perspective on war's tragedies is beautifully composed, and heartbreakingly credible. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, manager, Book Passage, San Francisco