Carry the Dog

“I can’t remember the last time I was as completely bewitched by a fictional character as I was by Bea Seger in Stephanie Gangi’s Carry The Dog. What a treat to view life through the eyes of this funny, smart, gutsy woman, who has suffered its outrageous slings and arrows, and just keeps coming back for more.”
—Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls and Chances Are . . .

“Stephanie Gangi’s Carry the Dog is powered by insight and true wit as it explores families and their aftershocks, as well as art, regret, and the state of being an older, desiring female in a world that too often looks away. I enjoyed it immensely.”
—Meg Wolitzer, New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion
 
"Prickly but vulnerable, Bea is an irresistible character, and Gangi’s novel is less a chronicle of growing up in the shadow of an artist parent as it is a late-in-life coming-of-age story. Fans of Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (2017) will find as much to love in this novel as those of Myla Goldberg’s Feast Your Eyes (2019) and Dawnie Walton’s The Final Revival of Opal Nev (2021).
—Booklist, starred review

"There was something so authentic about this novel, and the awkward, earnest grace of the bright light at its center, Bea. It's a book about resilience, and the imperative of defining yourself to yourself, and a riveting reminder that nothing in this life is ever too late. I loved it."
—Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes

“Magnificent . . . A dark, utterly convincing exploration of family trauma and individual survival . . . It’s easy to forget that Carry the Dog is fiction; it feels deeply real, like a true memoir from a slightly alternate world just beyond our reach.”
—New York Journal of Books