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How To Push Through
‘Audacious and spectacular’ -The Times
Every single one of us contains landscapes and characters, no matter if they’re real or imaginary, that no one, no partner, no lover, friend or even psychic can ever hope to see…
Anna Maria von Doderer is waiting. Waiting for a therapy patient she hasn’t seen for many years. She has to tell her about her diagnosis all that time ago. That she’d got it all wrong.
Chrissie knows she must meet the “Dod” and is apprehensive. Will Anna-Maria be able to see straight through her? But the news she now brings can only be told face to face.
The news about Egon.
Egon, the wild child of the woods, abandoned by his mother in a desperate bid for survival during the second world war.
Egon, who, in total innocence, has drawn so many lives together in a complex tapestry, with both miraculous and disastrous outcomes.
Margot, ex-Hollywood stand-in, British secret agent in the war and survivor of the Russian Gulags (labour camps), knows she is dying and looks back on her life; and the one pressing question: should she finally reveal the secret that she has been holding for the past forty years?
Told in their own voices, this story of fantastic coincidence and tragic consequence explores the human spirit; it’s amazing strengths and fatal weaknesses. It is indeed a glorious journey through many landscapes, both in the real world and of the mind.
How To Push Through is the fourth and final book of Carey Harrison’s The Heart Beneath Quartet, following Richard’s Feet, Cley and Egon.
Praise for Carey Harrison
‘One of the most accomplished writers of our time’ - The Dublin Evening News
‘Essential reading’ - The Financial Times
‘Work of demonic beauty, antic imagination and universal resonance’ - The San Francisco Chronicle
‘Bawdy, turbulent, rife with fiendish beauty’ - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
‘Rivetingly entertaining’ - The Daily Telegraph
‘Weirdly compelling, reminiscent of Jack Kerouac’ -New Woman
‘Fruity characterizations’ -London Review of Books
‘A hypnotic novel, very clever, very imaginative, a breathtaking attempt to get a handle on the entire human condition’ -The Mail on Sunday
‘Astonishing, affecting, holds the reader spellbound’ - Publishers Weekly
Carey Harrison was born in Britain and raised in the United States where he has spent the majority of his working life. He began as a stage playwright, completing 42 plays for the stage and forty plays for BBC radio. He is also an actor, teach and novelist and was described in the Dublin Evening News as ‘one of the most accomplished writers of our time’. He lives in Woodstock, New York.
Every single one of us contains landscapes and characters, no matter if they’re real or imaginary, that no one, no partner, no lover, friend or even psychic can ever hope to see…
Anna Maria von Doderer is waiting. Waiting for a therapy patient she hasn’t seen for many years. She has to tell her about her diagnosis all that time ago. That she’d got it all wrong.
Chrissie knows she must meet the “Dod” and is apprehensive. Will Anna-Maria be able to see straight through her? But the news she now brings can only be told face to face.
The news about Egon.
Egon, the wild child of the woods, abandoned by his mother in a desperate bid for survival during the second world war.
Egon, who, in total innocence, has drawn so many lives together in a complex tapestry, with both miraculous and disastrous outcomes.
Margot, ex-Hollywood stand-in, British secret agent in the war and survivor of the Russian Gulags (labour camps), knows she is dying and looks back on her life; and the one pressing question: should she finally reveal the secret that she has been holding for the past forty years?
Told in their own voices, this story of fantastic coincidence and tragic consequence explores the human spirit; it’s amazing strengths and fatal weaknesses. It is indeed a glorious journey through many landscapes, both in the real world and of the mind.
How To Push Through is the fourth and final book of Carey Harrison’s The Heart Beneath Quartet, following Richard’s Feet, Cley and Egon.
Praise for Carey Harrison
‘One of the most accomplished writers of our time’ - The Dublin Evening News
‘Essential reading’ - The Financial Times
‘Work of demonic beauty, antic imagination and universal resonance’ - The San Francisco Chronicle
‘Bawdy, turbulent, rife with fiendish beauty’ - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
‘Rivetingly entertaining’ - The Daily Telegraph
‘Weirdly compelling, reminiscent of Jack Kerouac’ -New Woman
‘Fruity characterizations’ -London Review of Books
‘A hypnotic novel, very clever, very imaginative, a breathtaking attempt to get a handle on the entire human condition’ -The Mail on Sunday
‘Astonishing, affecting, holds the reader spellbound’ - Publishers Weekly
Carey Harrison was born in Britain and raised in the United States where he has spent the majority of his working life. He began as a stage playwright, completing 42 plays for the stage and forty plays for BBC radio. He is also an actor, teach and novelist and was described in the Dublin Evening News as ‘one of the most accomplished writers of our time’. He lives in Woodstock, New York.
716 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 3, 2017
1 person is currently reading
4 people want to read
About the author
Carey Harrison
26 books9 followersCarey Harrison was an English novelist and dramatist.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 8, 2017
This story by Carey Harrison steps in as the fourth book from ‘THE HEART BENEATH’.
I hadn’t read any of the author’s previous work so I did not know what I was going to find opening this book. I have to admit that the author is very talented. His characters are well developed, his world is well build and the descriptions are quite detailed.
The plot and the characters are interested enough to keep you reading, but the detailed description makes it too dense sometimes. There were times in where I would skip some parts because it got too long. I understand some of them would not affect the book if you take them out.
All in all, it was a very interesting reading and that would be the reason why I would recommend this title.
Disclaimer: I got a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
I hadn’t read any of the author’s previous work so I did not know what I was going to find opening this book. I have to admit that the author is very talented. His characters are well developed, his world is well build and the descriptions are quite detailed.
The plot and the characters are interested enough to keep you reading, but the detailed description makes it too dense sometimes. There were times in where I would skip some parts because it got too long. I understand some of them would not affect the book if you take them out.
All in all, it was a very interesting reading and that would be the reason why I would recommend this title.
Disclaimer: I got a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
April 24, 2017
The fourth and final book in the "The Heart Beneath" quartet. I haven't read the first 3 as I was sent a copy of this one by the publishers in return for providing a review. This can be read as a standalone story though, although I suppose for completeness, reading them in order from the first onwards would be better.
The book is narrated in the first person from the perspective of 3 of the central characters and covers their lives over several decades. The book is quite thought provoking, which I liked and I also liked the way it is a story of how events in different people's lives interlink and have an impact and influence in the future, and how people's flaws, desires, loyalties, weaknesses and jealousies effect them and others, and shape their lives, and how easy it is to be affected by things you can't control, and how there is so much about people, you think you know, that you can be unaware of.
Whilst I enjoyed that depth, I have to say that, for me, the book is far too long winded. I found some of the descriptions and background far too lengthy and it frequently digresses onto side issues (unless they are core issues and I was missing the point somewhere) which gave me the impression of a tendency to ramble. I am sure a lot of that could have been cut out and the book made more concise without losing its capacity to provoke thought. Indeed, more conciseness might have made it more thought provoking because in parts it became a bit of a slog and I lost concentration here and there, so perhaps missed some important points. I also found the idea of Egon, abandoned in a forest as a small child to protect him from the Nazis and allow his mother to escape them, then turning up in Cornwall years later, and living rough in a mine shaft, a bit far fetched. In fairness, though I can live with that, and it actually added to the interest.
Having said that there were some excellent passages, such as the chapter that outlines the thoughts of Jo as she contemplates suicide, and the one before that, and the final chapter that brought things to a head was really enjoyable and had me gripped. I think far more of the book would have had me gripped if it hadn't gone off on so many sidelines that as far as I could see didn't play part of the main plot. That for me spoiled what could have been a really good read.
The book is narrated in the first person from the perspective of 3 of the central characters and covers their lives over several decades. The book is quite thought provoking, which I liked and I also liked the way it is a story of how events in different people's lives interlink and have an impact and influence in the future, and how people's flaws, desires, loyalties, weaknesses and jealousies effect them and others, and shape their lives, and how easy it is to be affected by things you can't control, and how there is so much about people, you think you know, that you can be unaware of.
Whilst I enjoyed that depth, I have to say that, for me, the book is far too long winded. I found some of the descriptions and background far too lengthy and it frequently digresses onto side issues (unless they are core issues and I was missing the point somewhere) which gave me the impression of a tendency to ramble. I am sure a lot of that could have been cut out and the book made more concise without losing its capacity to provoke thought. Indeed, more conciseness might have made it more thought provoking because in parts it became a bit of a slog and I lost concentration here and there, so perhaps missed some important points. I also found the idea of Egon, abandoned in a forest as a small child to protect him from the Nazis and allow his mother to escape them, then turning up in Cornwall years later, and living rough in a mine shaft, a bit far fetched. In fairness, though I can live with that, and it actually added to the interest.
Having said that there were some excellent passages, such as the chapter that outlines the thoughts of Jo as she contemplates suicide, and the one before that, and the final chapter that brought things to a head was really enjoyable and had me gripped. I think far more of the book would have had me gripped if it hadn't gone off on so many sidelines that as far as I could see didn't play part of the main plot. That for me spoiled what could have been a really good read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews