A powerful and poetic novel.... Demonstrates a perceptive novelist’s knowledge of those deeper, interior rhythms that somehow propel us, at times in beauty and at times in tortured patterns, across the surface of the earth.” — Albuquerque Journal
“Saenz is wonderful, at times magnificent.” — Baltimore Sun
“Carry me Like Water is indeed a lovely first novel, rich in its sense of place and people. Benjamin Alire Saenz has a fine talent.” — Larry McMurtry, author of Terms of Endearment, Lonesome Dove and Streets of Laredo
“Carry Me Like Water is full of love, loathing and a cacophony of characters which people the spiritual airwaves from El Paso to California. Certainly a new perspective in the Chicano novel.” — Rudolfo Anaya, author of Bless Me Ultima
“Benjamin Saenz has created with his first novel a work of unique and endearing quality. The characters and conflicts appear as in no other book I’ve read. There is a well-wrought and compelling ferment of pain and pathos, the familiar with the supernatural, the poetic with plot.” — Luis Rodriguez, author of Always Running: Gang Days in L.A.
“In a voice profoundly androgynous, radically compassionate, and equally at home in two languages, Saenz moves from the inner lives of women to those of men, from rich to poor, Chicano to gringo, believer to skeptic, building symmetries and counterpoints that maintain their delicacy even in the midst of emotional explosion. That the words ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ could believably incarnate in the tough, two-facer city of el Paso-Juarez did not seem possible to me. Until this book.” — David James Duncan, author of The Brothers K and The Rivers Y
“Benjamin Saenz knows well the desert world of El Paso, Texas, that searing landscape of little rain. In his novel, Carry Me Like Water, the broken-spirited run from and yet desperately seek family, the greater connection to all human life. To belong to someone. Something greater than oneself. Rain-soaked roots. Life. This is a novel that is harsh yet merciful. Unforgettable as land." — Denise Chavez, author of Face of an Angel
Saenz is wonderful, at times magnificent.
A powerful and poetic novel.... Demonstrates a perceptive novelist’s knowledge of those deeper, interior rhythms that somehow propel us, at times in beauty and at times in tortured patterns, across the surface of the earth.
Benjamin Saenz knows well the desert world of El Paso, Texas, that searing landscape of little rain. In his novel, Carry Me Like Water, the broken-spirited run from and yet desperately seek family, the greater connection to all human life. To belong to someone. Something greater than oneself. Rain-soaked roots. Life. This is a novel that is harsh yet merciful. Unforgettable as land."
In a voice profoundly androgynous, radically compassionate, and equally at home in two languages, Saenz moves from the inner lives of women to those of men, from rich to poor, Chicano to gringo, believer to skeptic, building symmetries and counterpoints that maintain their delicacy even in the midst of emotional explosion. That the words ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ could believably incarnate in the tough, two-facer city of el Paso-Juarez did not seem possible to me. Until this book.
Carry Me Like Water is full of love, loathing and a cacophony of characters which people the spiritual airwaves from El Paso to California. Certainly a new perspective in the Chicano novel.
Carry me Like Water is indeed a lovely first novel, rich in its sense of place and people. Benjamin Alire Saenz has a fine talent.
Benjamin Saenz has created with his first novel a work of unique and endearing quality. The characters and conflicts appear as in no other book I’ve read. There is a well-wrought and compelling ferment of pain and pathos, the familiar with the supernatural, the poetic with plot.
At once epic and fantastic in tone, Carry Me Like Water is strange and hot but it is never dull, desolate or poor.
