The Hour I First Believed (P.S.)

by Wally Lamb

From the author of the international number one bestseller I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE comes a magnificent novel of a life turned upside-down by tragedy – and the search for a way to carry on in the aftermath.

Caelum Quirk is a middle-aged schoolteacher. Students at Columbine High School generally respect him and turn to his wife Maureen, the school nurse, when in trouble. When he has to return to his home town for the funeral of his beloved aunt, Maureen promises to join him the next day – but she goes to work that morning, and that’s when the shootings happen. She hides in a cupboard, unable to see what’s happening, but listening to the students being taunted, then killed.

Life can never be the same again. In the face of Maureen’s trauma, Caelum searches for meaning, delving into his own family history and discovering that nothing was as he’s always been told. As the couple inch towards recovery and suffer setbacks, the stories of Caelum’s redoubtable ancestors illuminate how he came to be the man he is, and how he and Maureen might live in the future with freedom and dignity. With no easy answers, Caelum gradually comes to an understanding of who he really is and what he can believe in.

• ISBN13: 9780007290802
• Publish Date: 2 April 2009 (first published 1 January 2008)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperCollins
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 640
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

I had the opportunity to see Wally Lamb in Cedar Rapids as a part of the Outloud! Author Series sponsored by the Metro Library Network. Mr. Lamb has been one of those mysterious authors floating out in the ether. An author one would think that as an English major in college, I would have read by now, but until this year, I hadn’t. Mr. Lamb talked about all his books during his reading and the one that most caught my attention was The Hour I First Believed. The book chronicles a couple who survived Columbine and links in elements of historical fiction and despite the size of the book (over 700 pages), I decided to give it a shot.

I’ll keep this review short and sweet. I did finish The Hour I First Believed. When I finished it, I thought I might have to go into therapy. The book is depressing with very little redemption for the characters until the last few pages. It’s 700 pages to the bottom of a deep dark pit of adultery, addiction, abuse, bullying and self-loathing. The writing is beautiful. The story is expertly woven showing how the past affects the future. But the lack of genuine happiness without cynicism left me feeling empty and depressed.

I’m glad I gave a Wally Lamb book a chance. There were some interesting observations about the Columbine tragedy that reflect discussions that have happened on social media lately. However, if all of Lamb’s books are about the dark side of the human condition without more hope for redemption, I think I’ll back away slowly and stay in the worlds created by the fantasy books I so often chose to read. The Hour I First Believed, unfortunately, gets a thumbs down.