Rose's Garden »

Carrie Brown, a former journalist, lives in Sweet Briar, Virginia, with her husband, the novelist John Gregory Brown, and their three children. Her first novel, Rose's Garden, won the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award. Her most recent book, The Hatbox Baby, won the 2001 Great Lakes Booksellers Association award for fiction and the 2001 Library of Virginia Literary Award.

In her 1998 Barnes & Noble Discover Award-winning debut, Carrie Brown tells the story of Conrad, a 75-year-old man who succumbs to severe depression following the death of his wife. At his emotional nadir, neglecting his friends, himself, even his wife's beloved garden, Conrad receives an angelic visitor who changes his life with a simple message: "Go home." Compelled to share the good news, Conrad writes the local newspaper, and visitors flock to the site of his miraculous vision. Gradually, through his renewed involvement with the world around him, Conrad begins to achieve a genuine appreciation of the beauty that exists in the everyday and discovers the true value of his life.

Publishers Weekly

When Conrad Morrissey's wife, Rose, dies after 50 years of marriage, it takes an angelic visit to save him from his grief. That is the familiar premise of Brown's sweet, gentle first novel, set in the small town of Laurel, N.H. Once the ghost of his dead father-in-law prompts Conrad to concern himself with the living instead of the dead, he discovers that Rose's mysterious friend Hero, a slightly retarded girl with whom she shared a love of gardening, has also been receiving instruction from the dead. "And what had it been to Hero? He could not guess, except to believe that her world had always been filled with voices, the spokesmen of recrimination and doubt." As rain threatens to obliterate Laurel's ancient dam, and the town itself, Conrad finds new meaning in the memory of his wife and in devotion to the White Mountains community where they both spent the best years of their lives. A town full of sympathetic characters, including the widowed neighbor who can only sleep when every light in the house is on, and the beleaguered editor of the local paper, round out this sensitive debut.