I loved everything about this novel-Bea, her wryly funny inner voice and interactions with those around her, ever conscious of her face and body aging, as well as her bravery in finally opening up the archives of her childhood and exploring the bittersweet truth of her family's past. Highly recommended if you like later-in-life characters who may not be aging so gracefully, art, photography, rock and roll, and stories about imperfect but honest family relationships.

With keen observations and adept storytelling, I became so engrossed in this story that I felt as though I was reading a personal memoir.

At nearly sixty-year-olds, Bea Seger looks in the mirror and wonders what the heck happened. Twice married and divorced from her rock and roll savior, Bea is now struggling with aging and losing youth and beauty.

The MoMA and a Hollywood producer come to Bea, both interested in her mother’s work, especially those photographs known as the Marx Nudes, and the past starts to knock around in Bea’s mind.

The Marx Nudes were controversial photos taken by her mother, a famous photographer. Bea and her twin brothers were the subjects, naked and in strange and evocative poses. With the renewed interest in the photos, Bea digs into locked storage boxes, searching for more images. What she discovers are new dark secrets of the dysfunctionality of her childhood and the legacy of trauma in her family’s past.

In 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐨𝐠, Stephanie Gangi takes on family tragedy and questions the blurry lines of art. Bea is such a great character; she doesn’t want to be remembered as just a captured image and surely doesn’t want to fade away.

Bea is a 59 year old woman still running from her childhood. When she was a child, her mother, a famous and well known photographer, took a series of nude pictures of Bea and her two brothers as children and into their teenage years. The series was known as the Marx Nudes. The pictures were celebrated by some people but appalling to others and her mother was accused of pornography. The truth is the children have dealt with the photos for their entire lives and tried to put the photos and their childhood memories out of their minds. Not only the memories of the pictures being taken was traumatic but the children were forced to participate even when they were uncomfortable. It's putting it mildly to say that this was a very dysfunctional family.

Now at almost 60, Bea has been approached by a film maker who wants to do a movie about her mother and the nude photos. At the same time, she's been approached by the Museum of Modern Art who want to do a retrospective showing of the photos. Brea is desperately short on money and has to make a decision whether to take the money and run or leave it all locked away in a storage building. The decision on how to handle this situation, brings back lots of memories -- her memories and maybe not the real situations. Her mother and one brother are dead and she is estranged from her other brother so she no one to talk to about her childhood and no way to get to the real truths.

It was great to read a book with an older female main character. She is facing old age and realizes after being so visible to the world as a child she is now basically invisible as an aging female. Bea is a complex character with a huge decision to make. She thinks that she's a weak person but finds out while making this decision how resilient she really is.

This intriguing novel is about truth vs memory, disappointment vs gratitude, connection vs vulnerability, It's difficult to read in parts but well worth reading about Bea's growth as a person in later life.

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.

I suspect this won't be for everyone but I very much enjoyed it. Bea, daughter of the notorious photographer Miriam Marx finds her life turned upside down when her ex-husband Gary introduces her to a Hollywood producer who wants to make a movie about her mother at the same time as Vivian reaches out from MOMA to offer an entire floor of the museum for a retrospective. Whew. Miri photographed Bea and her twin brothers Henry and Ansel in the nude for years until tragedy stuck. Now years later, Bea must face what actually happened as well as herself. Her half sister Echo (nee Hannah) has moved in with her; they travel to Florida to talk with their father Alfred for the first time in years for Bea. It's Harry who left the family for college and never looked back who holds the answers but she must find him. I liked this for Bea, a woman of conflicts and contradictions. It's also wonderfully atmospheric about NYC. Know that there are disturbing scenes and that its quite sad in spots but also that the writing is terrific. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. Great read.

With an interesting story and good characters, Stephanie Gangi does a worthy job of conveying the angst of the aging female, Unfortunately, the too-happy, upbeat Hallmark ending is a disappointment.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The daughter and one of the subjects of an infamous photographer debates offers to chronicle the life of her mother. In consideration of her offers, she is forced to face painful truths about her childhood.

Berenice Marx-Seger (Bea) has spent a lifetime running from her childhood and at 59 she’s finally ready to open up the door to her past. A past that is dark and maybe best left in the past. When Bea and her older twin brothers, Henri and Ansel, were young their mother, a famous (or perhaps infamous) photographer, photographed them nude. Those photos still haunt Bea and set the course for all of their lives. Some very tragic. Many considered Miri’s art pornography and there was definitely more than a hint of abuse. With Hollywood knocking wanting more of Miri’s life story, Bea is opening Pandora’s box. A box she has left tightly closed for far too long. Will she sell her past to save her future? Bea is quite the character with one of my favorite segments in the book being ... “This is how it goes now. I leave home, I’ve done my best, I think I look good, I feel good and then I catch my reflection in a window or a mirror. There is a split second before I recognize myself.” Who of us, that are of a certain age, doesn’t have that realization each time we see our reflection? I wanted to love this book, but unfortunately didn’t connect with the storyline, but I did enjoy Bea!

The past is like an optical illusion. The closer I get, the further away it is. from Carry the Dog by Stephani Gangi

Bea is struggling. She can’t write her memoir. She can’t let go of her ex-husband’s support, emotionally and financially. She can’t accept the woman she sees in the mirror. She has no children and she is estranged from her brother who abandoned her when he left for college. She worries that her breast cancer may return. Now, she is approached by a film director and MOMA about her mother’s iconic photographs, the Marx Nudes, each wanting access to use them.

The photographs were taken by their mother when Bea and her twin brothers were children and young teens. Nude photographs that brought charges of pornography. Photos that caused trauma in her family that Bea can’t get over.

And there are other flitting memories as well, so she is unsure of what really happened.

Bea is a wonderful character, a vibrant and conflicted woman who feels her life is all behind her. She was a teenager when she met rock star Gary Going and ran off with him. She wrote the lyrics to his hit song, but was never properly compensated or credited for it. Gary was the center of his universe, her best friend, and she spend years ignoring his betrayals. Divorced, her companion is a dog that belongs to vacationing neighbors.

At age 59, looking in the mirror, she counts her losses. The creaking joints. How sex requires preparations of all kinds. Knowing she is invisible to young men. Missing her brother Henry.

Aging, it’s an accumulation of small losses and tiny glitches that you don’t notice and then you do and you ignore them at first and then you can’t. from Carry the Dog by Stephanie Gangi

After her father’s death, she inherits a storage unit filled with her mother’s photography equipment and work. Her half-sister comes to New York City to stay with Bea, and they bond, Echo wearing Bea’s vintage clothes and hoping for a singing career.

Gary pushes Bea to accept the film offer, knowing she needs the money. Meanwhile, MOMA wants an exhibition of Marx photographs, gratis, and hopes Bea can include unseen work that Bea could see for profit. But, going through the achieves she encounters memories and disturbing insight into her mother’s life.

Desperate for help in decision making, she tracks down Henry. And what she learns upends her understanding of their past.

Carry the Dog is disturbing, the story of intergenerational trauma, and yet Bea ends freed and finally ready to accept the past and herself.

Bea is ten years younger than I am. It was refreshing to read about the challenges of aging from a female perspective.

I will alert readers that the nature of the trauma is disturbing, but there are no recreated scenes of the abuse.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

I really enjoyed this novel, disturbing as it was at some points. The character of almost-60 Bea Seger resonated for me— a woman carrying the weight of childhood traumas, disappointments, and family tragedy. And yet— I found author Stephanie Gangi’s characterizations and writing style upbeat, gutsy, and utterly genuine.

I was provided with an Advance Reading Copy of this title by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I give the book 4.5 stars, rounded up.

In this often funny novel, Bea Segeris, on the cusp of turning sixty, has a complicated life. The title Carry the Dog comes from a photograph that her famous mother took that was featured in Life Magazine when her mom was only eighteen years old. Her mother also immortalized Bea and her brothers by photographing them in a provocative series, The Marx Nudes, which caused quite a stir at the time. Hollywood wants to make a biopic of her family’s life and the Museum of Modern Arts wants the images. Bea has to navigate, is selling her family’s story selling out? And what old wounds might come of revisiting the past. It’s a novel about aging, revisiting the past and childhood trauma. Thank you to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for the advanced review copy.

[3.5 stars]

This character-driven literary fiction examining the aftermath of a child being the subject of nude photographs when she was too young to consent (partially inspired by Sally Mann) turned out to be a bit uneven, even though I really enjoyed some parts of it. Bea Seger is a cool woman in her 60's who spent time in the 1970's music scene and I liked her as a main character. This story gave me a bit of My Dark Vanessa vibes, as Bea reflects back on something that felt off, but she couldn't articulate how at the time. And, like My Dark Vanessa, this book won't be for everyone. There were too many tangents that left me bored with the story, taking away from the more profound parts of the narrative (particularly Bea's processing of her trauma years later).

CARRY THE DOG is a pitch-perfect portrayal of a woman about to turn 60, who still grapples with the trauma of an abusive childhood. There is rock-and-roll and photography, Woodstock and the kind of dog only New Yorkers can have. It is funny and bittersweet despite its dark topic, which slowly reveals itself as the narrator opens the tightly taped box that contains the key to her memories.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this title. The concept of the book hooked me, probably because I'm a fan of Sally Mann. The narrator wasn't super likable & not very relatable to me either, but the story had enough intrigue to keep me reading until the end. Though the book centers on family tragedy, it didn't leave me feeling depressed!

Finally, a book that doesn't make me feel like growing old isn't going to be terrible! These books I keep reading about women my age, in their mid-thirties, are all like, "You are never having sex again. Romance is over." In the first 30 pages of this one, a woman over 65 gets busy with her contemporary. I really needed that reassurance. This book is lovely even though the plot of "my mother was a famous photog who took pictures of us kids naked in an exploitative way" has (weirdly?) been done in literary fiction before. Like, multiple times.

I am a big fan of Stephanie Gangi’s debut novel “The Next” and eagerly anticipated her next book. I read a book not that long ago with similar subject matter (regarding children of a controversial artist) and while that book came highly reviewed by me, I find this one to be the superior work. This one focuses less on the artist and more about the effects of childhood trauma from the subjects themselves. It’s also a testament about resilience and that’s it’s never too late to find or define yourself.
I read so many books featuring protagonists my age or a little younger or older, and it was refreshing to read from the POV of a more mature woman. Berenice feels like someone you know, and I enjoyed her little musings about beauty and fashion. Other books might have added in the story from the perspective of Berenice’s brothers, but Berenice is such an excellent storyteller that I felt it would have been too much. Besides, this is HER truth that needed to be told. And she tells it well.