Customer Reviews

Carter Clay: A Novel

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you are looking for a quick read strictly for enjoyment, then this is not the book for you. However, if you want to really think and get involved in the minds of some very confused people suffering the consequences of inadvertent actions, or of victims of circumstance, then this will be an interesting experience for you.

Elizabeth Evans takes the reader into the heart of her confused, desperate characters. The novel challenges the reader to think about what it means to be human...what it means to be "good." And if that makes it seem like this is a heavy book, keep in mind that it is also a book full of suspense and humor. Calling the Coen brothers: this would make a great follow-up to Fargo! I loved this book!

This was the first book that I've read by Elizabeth Evans, and I must admit, it was a great story. Carter Clay, the burned out Vietnam vet is as complex and spellbinding a character as you'll come across in any book. It's a story of his fight for redemption after he hits the Alitz family, Joe, Katherine, and their daughter Jersey, with his van. But it's not just that. Evans tackles questions about God's "inhumanity to humans" and religion as a whole. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!!!!

If you're saying that Carter Clay was a hard read, maybe you need to go back to school and learn how to read. "Beloved" was a hard read. This is a character driven book and the dynamics that change between them after the accident are what keep you reading. There is a plot, too, which could have been dramatized more, but it is what it is: a literary thriller. I wouldn't consider it a waste of time like so many other books. Read it!

"Evans deftly examines culture's preoccupations with crime and punishment and who will be redeemed and at what price." --Denver Post

"Like Scott Smith's A SIMPLE PLAN. . .CARTER CLAY demonstrates with awful clarity the unintended consequences of good intentions. And like Elizabeth Evans' fine first novel, it shows a novelist working her way into the literary stratosphere." --Newsday

The one reader review on Carter Clay is very good, however it is not Elizabeth's debut novel. She published, The Blue Hour, several years ago. It was published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. She also has a collection of short stories by a small press in Minnesota.

I know these things because I attended Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa with Elizabeth during the early 1970's.

Elizabeth Evans did the cover art for Carter Clay and her short story collection. I own one of her oil paintings from college. Elizabeth a amazingly talented. She also is a great person and friend.

Fran Ferguson Gebhart, Class of 1974 at Cornell College.

"While many novelists emulate Feodor Dostoeski, Elizabeth Evans actually approaches his brilliance in CARTER CLAY, a tense, psychological page-turner that resonates on many levels. --Minneapolis Star Tribune

One wonders about the accolade-strewn editorial reviews and the less-than-stellar reviews from the real readers. How original to delve deep into the psyche of the alchoholic Vietnam vet! ...and with a tendency to consistently digress from any noticeable plot with uninteresting, tangential forays. I believe that I have read more interesting phone books.

What makes us who we are? Are we simply our physical being, the sum of our actions, or who we wish to be? Elizabeth Evans takes these questions on while delivering an entertaining and suspenseful novel. The tragic consequences of people lying to others, God, and even themselves about who they are drive this story forward as protagonist Jersey must deal with her own identity issues: Is she still her mother's daughter and is her mother still the same person after their horrifying accident. Wanting the best for this amazing young girl as she struggles with the failings of the adults around her kept me intensely interested until the last sentence. This book is also a wonderful illustration of how religion and faith, when misunderstood and misused, can be a weapon of destruction.