The Hour I First Believed: A Novel
by Wally Lamb
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Book Reviews of The Hour I First Believed: A Novel
Book Review: American Tragedies Revealed
Summary: 5 Stars
Wally Lamb's latest novel is a manifesto of American Grief. I just finished the novel yesterday, and when I woke up this morning, I found out that less than fifty miles away from where I live, in a small town outside of a dying American city (and don't get me wrong, I truly love Buffalo) a plane crashed into a house in a quiet neighborhood. 49 people were killed. And watching the intense media coverage of this latest American tragedy, I can't help but wonder if Lamb would have shoved this incident into his novel as well. In many ways, it is a brilliant, well thought out story about a man, Caelum Quirk, whose wife survives the Columbine shootings. Curled up, hiding from the killers in a desk in the library, she emerges from the incident radically changed, a victim suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You know who else might have experienced PTSD? Mothers who have lost children in war, men who came back from the Civil War, the Korean war, the Iraq War. Women who accidentally shook their babies to death. People who lost everything in hurricane Katrina. Wally Lamb manages to insert each of these horrific pieces of American detail into his novel, in incredibly vivid detail and emotion. Although 9/11 is referred to several times, I am really shocked that someone who had survived the collapse of the World Trade Center did not show up in Caelum's day-to-day life.
Is it too much? Who am I to say? As Caelum, a two-time divorcee accused of emotional detachment, attends to his broken wife, he comes across many other "survivors." The people he meets through the novel, the ancestors he discovers through old letters and memoirs, and the way America handles herself in a post 9/11 world, Caelum does emerge a stronger, more giving and loving character. There are several themes woven through the story, but the one most prominent for me was "how could a loving God allow innocent people to suffer?" How could God allow the towers to fall, people's homes to be ravaged in a hurricane, planes to fall from the sky... how could He allow children to be raped and abused, wars to go on without good reason... how could He allow kids to brutally murder other kids? It is the question of the ages. The title "The Hour I First Believed" should imply that Lamb's answer is at least a hopeful one. At for that reason alone, I give the book five well-earned stars.
Book Review: Wonderful
Summary: 5 Stars
I read 'This Much I Know is True' for the first time just a month or two ago. I would ideally have had more time between these two and I would recommend others not read them so near each other, regardless of the order.
I loved 'This Much I Know is True' - it is one of the best books I have ever touched. But 'The Hour I First Believed' is a better book. I cared more, I cried more and it just spoke to me more.
The main criticism is that it is these two books are very similar. He crosses characters between books, well he uses characters from 'This Much' in this new book. But more than that, the main characters are similar. Some external things to them are similar. They both have the world break around them and finding some peace after being totally broke.
Some might find the message to be a little preachy or political, even more so with the author's notes. I think the book is not all that preachy with the Anti-war stuff. He speaks more to it after, but to me it is not the driving force behind this in any way.
Some might also find fault with using a real life event, with the school shootings in Colorado. It bothered me at first, but in the end I think it was the right decision. I think fictionalizing a school shooting would never have had the impact and would have felt a bit cheesy. In so much that since we all have lived through the real thing (I mean that respectfully as an outsider, not knowing the real pain) that a made up one would seem odd. Just like I think the description of a US terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 but not 9/11 as a backdrop would lack the impact. The sad thing is that these events are so horrible that if someone tells you a made up version it just seems far fetched. Not sure if that makes sense.
I hope this book does not cause more pain for those that lived that nightmare. Rather I hope such a book heals all kinds of hurting people.
I have yet to read an author that captures the concept of being broken, living with someone broken, loving something broken like Wally Lamb does. If you are broken, read his things. If you are not and you are scared of when you will be, as we all will be at some point, read his things. It gives you hope.
Thank you so much for the gift of this book.
Book Review: Return trip to Three Rivers not all it could have been.
Summary: 3 Stars
I have loved "I Know This Much is True" since the day it was released. I must have read it 30 times. So when this book came out I eagerly anticipated reading the follow up work of an author I have come to respect and admire.
I was so dissapointed. To me, Caleum Quirk could be a milder, less angry version of Dominick Birdsey. The two characters' voices blended in my mind. Also, I was very dissapointed that it borrowed the format off of his prior work as far as finding the past, a scholar puts it together, delivers a manuscript, and the reader is enlightened and finds the secrets of the past out in this way. Janis is the Nedra Frank of the book. Why not have the enlightenment come in some way unrelated to scholars and manuscripts?
Birdsey was a teacher, so was Quirk. Did their paths cross professionally before Quirk quit teaching in Three Rivers the first time? Where was Leo Blood? It's reasonable to assume in the school flashbacks, he'd have a cameo doing The Jerk? Is Del Weeks any relation to Lydia Quirk's relative with the same last name? Why is this not explained? Where was Ralph Drinkwater?
This book did not rivet you and jar you immediately into the characters' world as the opening of his prior work did, and the trauma of Columbine was not felt and conveyed through the book as the reader experiencing it along with the character - something that "True" managed to accomplish in the first paragraph.
And the big catharsis never really came either. The ending was rushed and as a reader, I didn't feel resolution. I was not emotionally connected, I didn't live the drama with the characters nor did I live their resolution. It was too airy, and did not grip me. I didn't leave this book feeling enlightened, I left it feeling like I had read something that could have been so much more. It was empty.
All in all I think that Lamb borrowed his prior format, his prior world, and kept the same voice as his prior protagonist which resulted in delivering a sub-par work. After such a long gap in between books, I expected more. And to me the excuses he delivers regarding the difficulty he had with it, cements in my mind that he knows he could have done better too. Writers' block is cruel!
Book Review: Compelling long-awaited third novel
Summary: 4 Stars
Author Wally Lamb instantly garnered countless fans, myself included, with the publication of his first two novels, She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True. But he's been MIA for some time now; as he explains in his Afterword, it has taken him nine years to write this latest book. Some readers might not find The Hour I First Believed to be worth the wait, but I still found it to be a compelling work it its own right.
Lamb does an excellent job of weaving in the fictional plot of the novel against the background of actual events, most notably, the tragedy at Columbine High School in 1999. Caelum Quirk and his wife, Maureen, both work at Columbine, but at the time of the shootings, Caelum has flown back East for a family emergency, whereas Maureen, present at the school, becomes one of the collaterally damaged victims suffering from an ongoing trauma response. Eventually, in an attempt to restore both Maureen and their marriage, the couple decides to sell their home in Colorado and move back to the Connecticut farm that has been in Caelum's family for generations.
The first half of this book, which centers around the Columbine story and the fallout related to this, is fascinating. In Part 2, however, the focus shifts more towards Caelum's family history. Although Caelum is the first-person narrator of the novel and Lamb does a good job of making his family history relevant to the story, I just didn't find this subplot to be as interesting. Furthermore, Lamb reveals the past information mostly through old letters and a scholarly work written by one of the characters, both of which I throught served to drag the book down somewhat.
Finally, the novel's conclusion was unexpected. Throughout most of the book, things go from bad to worse for the Quirks, so I was surprised with the outcome that Lamb chose; it's definitely not a Hollywood ending. Still, Lamb manages to infuse a sense of hope in his closing, as the final sentence matches the novel's title (which, as with Lamb's other novels, is a line taken from a song--this one is from "Amazing Grace"). And although I didn't enjoy the second half of this book as much as the first, I definitely found reading this novel to be worthwhile overall.
Book Review: Lots to like, lots to frustrate
Summary: 4 Stars
Despite its flaws, this book is still a page-turner. I devoured it in two sittings, even while I was critical of much of what I read. It doesn't come close to his previous two books, IMHO, but it's still well worth the effort. (There just aren't that many great contemporary authors out there).
On the positive side is the prose itself, and Lamb's gift of creating realistic anti-heroes---everyday people that are recognizable and mostly sympathetic. He's a master of understatement. He manages to convey his character's inner angst and neediness without resorting to overly melodramatic outbursts. He's also a master at identifying their Achilles heel, the weakness that foretells and propels their eventual demise, even while their complicity remains a mystery to them. And rather than rely on plot devices to drive the story, he uses his character's flaws to drive the story forward. Due to the their action or inaction, the next complication develops.
On the negative side, Lamb's latest effort suffers from Too Much Information and too many landmark events, historical and contemporary----thus, losing focus. Sometimes, it reads somewhere between a novel and a case study; often more didactic than a work of literary fiction. And while he obviously spends a lot of time researching (as all three of his novels prove), this time it seems as if he became more enamored with the research itself, than his characters. Hence what many here have identified as going off on "tangents".
Many times while reading, I had the distinct impression that he wasn't given the time to self-edit or distance himself from the "news" we've all been bombarded with post-Columbine. And I have no doubt that if Lamb hadn't been under the pressure of an already extended deadline, he would have unearthed the "real" story that I believe is lurking here, and written his third brilliant novel.
That said, Lamb proves once again that he's in a class of his own and a keen observer of humanity, even if this 3rd effort too often sacrifices inner character in order to draw atttention to a seemingly nonsensical, cyclical, violent outer-world.
Looking forward to his next book despite my mixed review of this one.