The Original 1982

March 15, 2013
A debut novel that juxtaposes the narrator's memories with thoughts of what could have been had she made a different decision back in 1982. An aspiring singer/songwriter, a rebel and a developing alcoholic, young Lisa is in love with a South American musician 13 years her senior who has achieved a certain stardom and can have his pick of beautiful women. She meets him when he comes into the cafe where she works as a waitress and admires her beauty. She knows she is one of many women in his life but thinks perhaps she will be the special one when she becomes pregnant with his child. But since he makes it clear he doesn't want her to have the baby, she has an abortion, a decision she very much regrets 30 years later, when she decides to revisit it. Addressing the man, she writes: " 'Maestro, I'm not having an abortion. Get ready. You're going to have a child.' And since I'm the writer of this story, and can do whatever I want, that's what I'll do. Go back to that day in 1982." She goes on to invent a child she names Minnow, and over the course of the book, she tells her imagined daughter's story as well as her own, mixing in events that did actually happen in 1982. Reality and imagination converge in this what-if tale.

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May 1, 2013
At 24, Lisa Nelson is a waitress in a New York City diner and a hopeful singer-songwriter with a talent for the guitar and a gifted voice. She is in love with Gabriel Luna, a famous musician and elusive playboy more than a decade her senior. When she becomes pregnant, and he doesn't want her to have the baby, she faces a monumental decision. What will happen if she goes against his wishes and raises their child alone in a world of poverty and struggle? Alternately, where will her life go if she puts her career and her desire to please Gabriel first? Lisa decides to have an abortion, but many years later, famous in her own right, she looks back and records this story of what-ifs as a message to the child she never had. In this first novel, Carson, herself a singer-songwriter, commits her artistry to paper, creating a lyrical story of love, longing, and acceptance. Beautifully imagined and authentically told, the result is a deeply meaningful exploration of an often painful subject.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)