The Original 1982: A Novel

by Lori Carson

Overview

The Original 1982 is the wise and memorable debut novel of love, regret, music, and motherhood, by singer and songwriter Lori Carson of the Golden Palominos.

It’s 1982, and Lisa is a 24-year-old waitress in New York City, an aspiring singer/songwriter, and girlfriend to a famous musician. That year, she makes a decision, almost without thinking about it.

But what if what if her decision had been different?

In a new 1982, Lisa chooses differently. Her career takes another direction. She becomes a mother. She loves differently—yet some things remain the same.

Alternating between two very different possibilities, The Original 1982 is a novel about how the choices we make affect the people we become—and about how the people we are affect the choices we make.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062245298
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	05/28/2013
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	5.52(w) x 7.86(h) x 0.58(d)

About the Author

Lori Carson is a singer-songwriter whose albums include Shelter, Where It Goes, Everything I Touch Runs Wild, and Another Year. A former member of the seminal band The Golden Palominos, she has contributed to the sound tracks of Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty, Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days, Keith Gordon's Waking the Dead, and others. The Original 1982 is her first novel.

Editorial Reviews

Carson writes about regret, desire, and most of all, love in its many forms with grace and sensitivity. This is a novel of deep sympathy and enormous heart, an impressive debut.

Christine Sneed

Carson hasn’t abandoned music completely; all the musicality of nuanced emotion can be found in the distilled beauty of her delicate prose. The music world may be losing a voice of quietly impassioned grace, but the literary world has easily and fortunately gained one.

PopMatters

A lyrical story of love, longing, and acceptance. Beautifully imaged and authentically told, the result is a deeply meaningful exploration of an often painful subject.

Booklist

THE ORIGINAL 1982 follows one woman’s what if? through a captivating double narrative that keeps the reader hooked. I fell hard for both options, and for the wise and determined narrator, Lisa, and I couldn’t stop reading until the tender, touching end.

Jessica Anya Blau

A daring, thoughtful book — delightfully unpretentious and full of love. THE ORIGINAL 1982 deftly explores the ways in which even what seem like the wrong choices can lead us in the right direction.

Alethea Black

Meaningful...Carson’s soft-lit prose never gets too romantic — and, most remarkably, she doesn’t pass judgment, instead chronicling the ups and downs of two fates unfolding with rueful realism. Mothers and others will appreciate her approach.

NPR

A lyrical story of love, longing, and acceptance. Beautifully imaged and authentically told, the result is a deeply meaningful exploration of an often painful subject.

Booklist

Carson hasn’t abandoned music completely; all the musicality of nuanced emotion can be found in the distilled beauty of her delicate prose. The music world may be losing a voice of quietly impassioned grace, but the literary world has easily and fortunately gained one.” %COMM_CONTRIB%PopMatters

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.

Kirkus Reviews