Hopefully it won't be another ten years before his next book
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As in "She's Come Undone" and "I Know This Much Is True," awful things keep happening until you want to slit your own wrists. But Wally Lamb has a way of making the ending so uplifting that it's worth the emotional trauma. One of the best books I've read this year.
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I love this book!
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I just bought this book yesterday and I can't put it down! I bought this after reading "She's Come Undone" and Wally Lamb is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors. His characters are realistic and flawed, and always compelling. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good character study and an in-depth emotional story.
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I Believe....
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I have been looking forward "The Hour I First Believed: A Novel" since I first learned it was in the works a couple years ago. I became a fan of Mr. Lamb's after reading the excellent "She's Come Undone" And then followed it with the just as good I Know This Much Is True" At the time, Lamb's style and sensibility were a whole new world to me. I loved the black humor, but it was the introspective style and snappy narrative that made him a joy to read.
This time out Lamb has gone above and beyond his previous works, creating a great American novel that speaks to the current generation. It's the story of Caelum Quirk and his young wife Maureen. The story of how the attempt to put their lives back together after Maureen miraculously survives the massacre at Columbine high school, she survives but not without deep physiological scares. The couple moves back to Caelum's family farm in Connecticut in an attempt to escape the horror of the school shooting, but life is not so easily put in a box, and destiny has more tragedy in store. The meat of the story is Caelum's quest to discover his past through a cache of old letters, diaries, and newspaper he finds hidden in the old family house. From this he is able to reconstruct his legacy, but it is not easy there are long buried secretes hidden in this legacy. This discovery of his past is the back drop for Caelum and Maureen as they struggle to form a future. This book takes the reader on an epic journey which had a profound effect on this reader. At times it was like a punch in the gut at others it brought a tear to my eye. Along with "Misfits Country" (another punch in the gut!) one of my favorite fiction reads of 2008!
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From Chaos Comes Regeneration...
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"Life is messy, violent, confusing, and hopeful..."
Thus the story unfolds. Caelum Quirk, a high school teacher and his younger wife Maureen, a school nurse, moved to Littleton, Colorado - they both were hired at Columbine High School - and here they hoped to start anew. In their previous home in Three Rivers, Connecticut, their
marriage had begun to fracture when Maureen had a love affair with a coworker, and Caelum's response - to take a wrench to the man - landed him in legal troubles and living under a cloud. So as they begin anew, they hope to slowly piece their lives together...Until the day in April, 1999, when havoc rained upon them.
Just before the horrific shootings at Columbine High School, Caelum had briefly returned to Connecticut, visiting with his aunt who had suffered a stroke. When he heard about the carnage at the high school, he returned home to Colorado in a panic, and for a few desperate hours, did not know his wife's fate. Was she still alive? Where was she?
Terrified when the shooting began, Maureen had taken shelter in a cabinet, not knowing when or if she would be targeted. She survived...And the Quirks clung to the miracle of her survival.
But then, Maureen seemed to crawl into a deep hole, unable to function. So the Quirks fled back to Connecticut, to the family farm, hoping to put the tragic events behind them, and to bury the aunt who has died.
But nothing is simple and the disastrous changes wrought on that tragic day have left deep wounds. Suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Maureen's life continues to unravel, one day at a time. She becomes a shadow of her former self, an emaciated shell. In therapy,
she makes little if any progress. And she begins to abuse the medications she takes. Caelum, too, suffers as their lives take on this new shape - controlled by the emotional chaos that has engulfed them since that day.
At some point, however, Maureen seems to improve and begins working as a nurse again. But with easy access to medications, it is not long before she is addicted.
Then one night, driving home from work and under the influence, Maureen hits and kills a young boy with her car.
The consequences are grave. Imprisoned, Maureen begins another horrendous journey, while Caelum tries to continue teaching, but barely exists...almost as if he, too, is serving a sentence. Meanwhile, a civil lawsuit is pending.
In the midst of the chaos of their lives, Caelum begins sorting through his aunt's belongings and finds diaries and documents that reveal family history, and eventually, some unimaginable secrets. As Caelum tries to reconstruct his family history in light of his findings, more dire events are uncovered.
Through everything he experiences, and with all that Maureen is facing, the future looks bleak indeed.
But then, as if from above, Caelum comes to realize that "We lived, lulled, on the fault line of chaos. Change could come explosively, and out of nowhere..."...and "...some explosion - as local as rifle fire, as worldwide as war - can set things reeling in a whole different direction,
can cause a fork in the road. And one path may lead to disintegration, the other to a reordered world."
Regeneration and hope can emerge from chaos. A reordered world can come from disintegration.
Toward the end of this long and very compelling novel, even as more tragedy befalls our characters, Caelum reaches a point of believing....And a feeling of hope is restored.
The Hour I First Believed, from the talented Wally Lamb, is a thought-provoking, philosophical exploration of what happens to people - ordinary individuals - when disaster strikes.
By Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of:
Web of Tyranny, etc.
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A Gifted Writer
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The new book by Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed, is a tremendous book. It starts first with its size - over 700 pages - and then with the depth of the story found between its covers. It begins with a husband and wife who have "survived" the shootings at Columbine. But the story then proceeds to be more much that just their reaction to the terrible day in 1999. The depth and detail taken with all the characters is a testament to the writing ability of Lamb. The story spans generations and the reader becomes genuinely invested in so many of them. This was a hard book to put down. I have loved every Wally Lamb that I have read - this is the third - and I hope he has many more to write in the future.
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