Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
For Bea Seger, life has meant years of running away: first from her home at age 19, when she elopes with a rock star, and then from herself, as an old scandal continues to haunt her. When she was a child, her mother, a photographer, was investigated by the FBI on charges of child pornography when, over several years, she took posed photographs of Bea and her brothers, three years her elders, pictures in which they were always either partially or totally nude.
With her mother and one brother dead--a long-ago suicide and a death in a mysterious fire, respectively--and her other brother estranged, Bea finds herself by default the one responsible for the library of work her mother created, much of it never publicly seen. Complicating Bea's life is the fact that the cancer she thought she had conquered seems to have returned, and she must find a way to care for herself. When a film producer suddenly becomes interested in doing a biographical film about her mother, and MoMa's photography curator decides to do a retrospective of her work, Bea finds herself having to deal with her mother's past and her legacy, exposing old wounds that she hoped had begun to heal.
Carry the Dog brims with truths about the human condition of a sophisticated yet earthy late-blooming feminist, and it reverberates with the echoes of the rock and roll world thanks to Bea's ex-husband, an aging rock star who still is a part of her life. Reading this novel is to be swept into Bea's world, to bear witness as the little girl in the photographs and the woman in the mirror meet at the blurry intersection of memory and truth, disappointment and gratitude, trauma and--most especially--resilience.
Synopsis
"Powered by insight and true wit." --Meg Wolitzer, New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion "I can't remember the last time I was as completely bewitched by a fictional character as I was by Bea Seger . . . What a treat to view life through the eyes of this funny, smart, gutsy woman."
--Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls and Chances Are...
Bea Seger has spent a lifetime running from her childhood. The daughter of a famous photographer, she and her brothers were the subjects of an explosive series of images in the 1960s known as the Marx Nudes. Disturbing and provocative, the photographs left a family legacy of grief felt long past the public outcry and media attention.
Now, decades later, both the Museum of Modern Art and Hollywood have come calling, eager to cash in on the enduring interest in these infamous photos. Bea faces a choice: Let the world in--and be financially compensated for the trauma of her childhood--or leave it all locked away in a storage unit forever.
Twice divorced from but still dependent on aging rock star Gary Going, Bea lives in Manhattan with her borrowed dog, Dory, and her sort-of half-sister, Echo. Navigating old resentments and betrayals, Bea stumbles towards her best future, even as the past looms larger than ever before.
Carry the Dog reverberates with rock and roll, and truths about the human condition of a late-blooming feminist. To inhabit this story is to be swept into Bea's world, to bear witness as the little girl in the photographs and the woman in the mirror meet at the blurry intersection of memory and truth, disappointment and gratitude, vulnerability and connection, and most of all, resilience.