Carry Me Like Water - Softcover

Sáenz, Benjamin Alire

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060831332 ISBN 13: 9780060831332

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2005

Synopsis

This immensely moving novel confronts divisions of race, gender, and class, fusing together the stories of people who come to recognize one another from former lives they didn't know existed - or that they tried to forget. Diego, a deaf-mute, is barely surviving on the border in El Paso, Texas. Diego's sister, Helen, who lives with her husband in the posh suburbs of San Francisco, long ago abandoned both her brother and her El Paso roots. Helen's best friend, Lizzie, a nurse in an AIDS ward, begins to uncover her own buried past after a mystical encounter with a patient.

With Carry Me Like Water, Benjamin Alire SÁenz unfolds a beautiful story about hope and forgiveness, unexpected reunions, an expanded definition of family, and, ultimately, what happens when the disparate worlds of pain and privilege collide.

About this title

About the Author:

Benjamin Alire Sáenz is the author of In Perfect Light, Carry Me Like Water, and House of Forgetting, as well as the author of several children’s books. He won the American Book Award for his collection of poems Calendar of Dust. Sáenz is the chair of the creative writing department at the University of Texas-El Paso.

From AudioFile:

Carry Me Like Water is the intertwining story of several struggling characters facing personal adversities that bring them together. The three narrators provide wonderful portrayals of several characters. Their voices richly paint the Spanish characters with colors and brush strokes as vibrant as the Southwest itself. Their depiction of the dying AIDS patient and his supportive friends captures their anguish and grief. Supernatural occurrences are presented in a believable, yet magical, manner that mesmerizes the listener. This is a powerful story enhanced by excellent narration. B.J.P. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060831332
• ISBN 13: 9780060831332
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 503