CARRYING

Bestselling author Theodore Weesner releases his first new novel in fifteen years—a gritty and realistic work of literary fiction that throws the reader into the detonating heart of the first Iraq war. With unapologetic candor, Weesner navigates the psychological minefield surrounding South Boston native Jimmy Murphy, a young soldier who writes a secret battlefield journal to his old English professor, Herman Roth. Weesner's narrative elegantly weaves two gripping journeys together: Roth's struggle with a waning academic career, and Jimmy's life--pulsating with rage, racial prejudice, and unfulfilled desire--as he fights to become the top gunner of the elite 2nd Cavalry Tank Division. Jimmy's rapid rise through the ranks gives him a sense of purpose and order, even as the war descends into chaos, and Iraq transforms into a wasteland of burning oil wells and charred corpses. And when it's all over, will he really be able to leave the war behind? Written in Weesner's signature penetrative style, Carrying expertly renders a startling portrait of a youth coming of age amongst terror and war. A timely and beautifully written novel that inserts itself into the zeitgeist of the legions of young soldiers who return home but never quite leave the battlefield.

Theodore Weesner has aptly been described as a "Writer's Writer" by the larger literary community. His short works have been published in the New Yorker, Esquire, Saturday Evening Post, Atlantic Monthly, and Best American Short Stories. His novels, including The Car Thief, The True Detective, Winning the City, and Harbor Lights, have been published to great critical acclaim in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, and others. He died in June, 2015.