Water, Carry Me [Hardcover]

Thomas Moran (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 28, 2000

The breathtaking love story of a young woman's betrayal, a haunting portrait of the extraordinary beauty and inexorable violence of a divided Ireland.

In what will surely be his most acclaimed novel yet, Moran carries us to the harbor towns of southern Ireland. Una Moss is a bright, young medical student struggling for independence from the world of her family's secret loyalties. Aidan Ferrel is the man who wins her love, the stranger she chooses to trust. Water, Carry Me is the story of a singular love pitted against political passion--the chronicle of a young woman's journey from innocence to betrayal, across the vivid brightness and darkness that is the heartbreaking landscape of her beloved Ireland.

Thomas Moran made his impressive literary debut with The Man in the Box, winner of the Book-of-the-Month Club's Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction. The New Yorker compared The Man in the Box to the diary of Anne Frank, and the Los Angeles Times compared Thomas Moran to Elie Wiesel. On the heels of this success came what Booklist predicted would be "for many . . . the best book of the year." The World I Made for Her confirmed the depth and breadth of Moran's talent. "Now, to A Farewell to Arms and The English Patient," Time magazine harkened, "add another memorable star-crossed Red Cross romance."

"Thomas Moran . . . can immerse you utterly in whatever moment he chooses to describe." --The New York Times Book Review

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Entrapment is a recurring theme in the art of Thomas Moran. His first novel, The Man in the Box, concerns a Jew hiding from Nazis in a secret, boxlike room in an Austrian farmer's barn. His next, The World I Made for Her, features a protagonist imprisoned within his own disease-ravaged body. In Water, Carry Me, Moran expands beyond physical constraints to explore the greatest trap of all: love. When we first meet Una Moss, she is in her final year of medical school in Ireland. Orphaned at the age of 8, she has grown up uneasily straddling two worlds: that of her working-class grandfather, Rawney, with whom she lives in a village outside of Cork, and the upper-class milieu of private school and moneyed friends. Early in the novel Moran hints at the political themes that will soon enmesh her: Rawney, a railroad engineer, frequently carries mysterious crates "all the way to Sligo, up near the Ulster border," and boasts of his "dangerous friends." In reality, though, his friends are more endangered than dangerous: Mungo, the fisherman who occasionally brings strange packages ashore in his boat, is the victim of a mysterious shipwreck; Des and Mick, who help load the contraband, are both picked up by the police, only to reappear weeks later with "a hole in their lives, an awful, secret space, a haunting."

Indeed everyone in Moran's novel is haunted in some way by the conflict in Northern Ireland. Una herself was orphaned because of her father's involvement with one side or the other:

The violence is like a virus moving invisibly through our blood, the IRA and the Ulster Defense Association the Typhoid Marys of it. It kills some, and deadens the hearts of the rest of us. Nobody but idiots--and the mad fanatics--are immune.

Neither, it turns out, is Una. Though at first she manages to lead a fairly normal life--going to school, spending time with her friends, and even falling in love with charming Aidan Ferrel--eventually the Troubles engulf her, too, and it is love that proves to be her undoing. In the haunting, heartbreaking Water, Carry Me Moran weaves the political and the personal into a net so subtle that his characters don't know they've been caught in it until it's too late. --Alix Wilber

From Library Journal

Though unclear until its conclusion, Moran's compelling third novel continues his explorations of confinement and memory. As Una Moss, a young Irish Catholic medical student from Cobh and the heroine of the story, notes, "Times past are not times gone, so long as they live inside you. My memory's like a theater?." For Una, her memories of floating peacefully in the sea are all she will have to sustain her during her coming ordeal. Like so many Irish, she has found herself tangled in "the troubles," even though she is unwilling to accept heir reality. After her mother and father are killed in a car "accident" when she is eight, her Grandda, a crotchety old railway engineer who makes weekly runs to Sligo, takes care of her. Life goes on, and when, as a medical student, she meets Aidan Ferrel, she thinks that at last she has found "the one." He adores her, but he is very quiet about his past. Born in the North, he does not like talking about the things he has seen, and when he does, he expresses only repulsion at the excesses of both sides. All too soon reality strikes in the form of an "18th century" plaque that piques the interest of an airport security guard dog. This is a well-crafted, haunting tale filled with very human characters caught in a web much bigger than themselves. Highly recommended for all public and larger academic libraries.
David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, FL
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover; First edition. edition (February 28, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573221384
• ISBN-13: 978-1573221382
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,491,927 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Irish Analysis, March 8, 2000

By 

Dorothy J. C. Kozak - See all my reviews

This review is from: Water, Carry Me (Hardcover)

Water Carry Me is a thoughtful, thoughtprovoking, and searingly emotional novel that jarrs the thinking and pushes at the heartstrings. Having initially read this book for business, I reread the book for pleasure, finding it impossible to escape its powerful themes of family, loyalty, and passionate committment. Although the reader may initially think the plot is a straightforward, standard thriller, there are numerous twists and turns along the way that keep one guessing as to the author's next maneuver. The main protagonist is a strong, heroic character, and the overall tone of the novel establishes an emotional connection to her from the outset. Overall, this is a thorough, well crafted novel with a wealth of thematic material to offer its audience.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SIMPLY, I AM LEFT BEREFT...., April 14, 2000

By 

Tonya (Oberlin, Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Water, Carry Me (Hardcover)

This was absolutely the most beautiful, and tragic book I have ever read. Love written about has never been more poetic and more in tune with what a woman's heart longs for. At the same time, I feel as if I am in mourning from reading this book. My heart is shattered and somehow I know that no reader will be left untouched by such haunting ,descriptive prose. It was like reading a love poem that enters into your heart and promises to never leave. I won't stop thinking about this book for quiet awhile.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A poem, an elegy, May 20, 2000

By 

Lynn Adler - See all my reviews

This review is from: Water, Carry Me (Audio Cassette)

The story and the words of this haunting and beautifully written story were the water that carried me through. It has been a few weeks since I finished the book. I am a prolific reader, and this this book stands out and stands tall. I was surprised and touched by its brilliant prose that read like poetry and more by the fate of the character, but I don't think one would have been possible without the other. At the end, one does feel very close to grief, the kind that makes you double over and scream silently. The tragedy of Una is heightened by the depth of her love and innocence, by the beauty of the landscape and the language, next to the incomprehension of cruelty and being caught in a political struggle that one has not sought. I feel that I have to immediately read "Man in the Box" and everything else that Moran has written and will write.