Carry Me, the novel. Amazon Vine 5 star.

Canadian edition, House of Anansi. Toronto.

Okay, time to do another book-boost. Because today (2/20) is the official publication date for the Canadian edition of my new novel, CARRY ME, by House of Anansi Press, Toronto. (The US edition, by Pantheon, comes out Wednesday). 

This means the book is already in stores across the Great White North, from St John's to Denman Island BC (my cousin Sandy bought the only copy available in a bookstore on Monkland Ave., Montreal last Thursday). If you're in Canada on a cold Saturday in February and looking for something to do, go to  Chapters Indigo online, or better yet hike to your local independent bookstore, and have a look at the book. This link goes to my book website which has links for online buying. If you buy it, great. If you read it, and like it, please write a review for GoodReads. Talk it up. Tell people. If you don't like it, keep quiet. If I get anywhere nearby, on the book tour, I will happily sign your copy. Sometimes signed Canadian first editions end up being worth something. Other times, they are excellent kindling. 

The US edition comes out and is available to buy in the US starting Wednesday 2/24. The US cover is different--see below. You know what's surprising? So far the book has got a perfect( 5 star) score on the Amazon Vine reviews. These are notoriously hardass and ruthless. So this is a good sign. 

I can't tell you how much I appreciate people who buy novels. Not just mine--any. The kinship of the book people is like the kinship of the old truck guys. My people.
If you want to see and hear me yammer on about my three novels (so far), and how they relate to each other, and why I wrote them--well, I gave a talk last month at Harvard called Families Histories Novels which is on video if you tap the link. When I looked at it, mostly what I noticed was that I had a weird and ugly  comb-over happening, but---
The only review we've noticed so far as Megan O'Grady's in Vogue. http://www.vogue.com/13392545/best-novels-in-february/
We've heard there are reviews to come in New York Times and Washington Post. Probably Toronto Globe & Mail. It's a crapshoot. They love you, they despise you, they're bored, they'e enthralled--who knows? It's a weird business.
What's the book about? Well it's a very intimate personal based-on-family-history take on Europe in a hellish period 1910-38 and more particularly on a society losing its moral bearings--Germany going to hell. Inspired considerably by my father's complicated Irish-English-German life 1910-88. Whats it about? War. Love. Escape. "Escapism was for realists then (Frankfurt 1938). Escapists saw things plain." Photo (see below) of  my father and grandfather. was taken on the Rhine R.,  a few days before beginning of WWII, a few days before my father got himself out of Germany.
You need to read the book.
If you're anywhere near New Haven CT this Wednesday I am reading/talking about the book at 7pm at the fabulous RJ Julia Bookseller store in Madison, CT.

                   HB & HBB, ABOVE THE LORELEI, RHINE RIVER, AUGUST 26 1939