Carter Clay

Elizabeth Evans takes the reader into the heart of her confused, desperate characters. The novel challenges the reader to think about what it means to be human...what it means to be "good." And if that makes it seem like this is a heavy book, keep in mind that it is also a book full of suspense and humor. Calling the Coen brothers: this would make a great follow-up to Fargo! I loved this book!

"Evans deftly examines culture's preoccupations with crime and punishment and who will be redeemed and at what price." --Denver Post

"Like Scott Smith's A SIMPLE PLAN. . .CARTER CLAY demonstrates with awful clarity the unintended consequences of good intentions. And like Elizabeth Evans' fine first novel, it shows a novelist working her way into the literary stratosphere." --Newsday

The one reader review on Carter Clay is very good, however it is not Elizabeth's debut novel. She published, The Blue Hour, several years ago. It was published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. She also has a collection of short stories by a small press in Minnesota.I know these things because I attended Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa with Elizabeth during the early 1970's.Elizabeth Evans did the cover art for Carter Clay and her short story collection. I own one of her oil paintings from college. Elizabeth a amazingly talented. She also is a great person and friend.Fran Ferguson Gebhart, Class of 1974 at Cornell College.

This was the first book that I've read by Elizabeth Evans, and I must admit, it was a great story. Carter Clay, the burned out Vietnam vet is as complex and spellbinding a character as you'll come across in any book. It's a story of his fight for redemption after he hits the Alitz family, Joe, Katherine, and their daughter Jersey, with his van. But it's not just that. Evans tackles questions about God's "inhumanity to humans" and religion as a whole. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!!!!