List Books Concering The Hour I First Believed
| Original Title: | The Hour I First Believed |
| ISBN: | 0060393491 (ISBN13: 9780060393496) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Denver, Colorado(United States) Connecticut(United States) |
Specify About Books The Hour I First Believed
| Title | : | The Hour I First Believed |
| Author | : | Wally Lamb |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 740 pages |
| Published | : | November 11th 2008 by Harper (first published November 11th 2007) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. Contemporary. Adult Fiction. Adult. Literary Fiction. Drama |
Narrative In Pursuance Of Books The Hour I First Believed
Wally Lamb's two previous novels, She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, struck a chord with readers. They responded to the intensely introspective nature of the books, and to their lively narrative styles and biting humor.In The Hour I First Believed, Lamb travels well beyond his earlier work and embodies in his fiction myth, psychology, family history stretching back many generations, and the questions of faith that lie at the heart of everyday life. The result is an extraordinary tour de force, at once a meditation on the human condition and an unflinching yet compassionate evocation of character.
When forty-seven-year-old high school teacher Caelum Quirk and his younger wife, Maureen, a school nurse, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, Caelum returns home to Three Rivers, Connecticut, to be with his aunt who has just had a stroke. But Maureen finds herself in the school library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed, as two vengeful students go on a carefully premeditated, murderous rampage. Miraculously she survives, but at a cost: she is unable to recover from the trauma. Caelum and Maureen flee Colorado and return to an illusion of safety at the Quirk family farm in Three Rivers. But the effects of chaos are not so easily put right, and further tragedy ensues.
While Maureen fights to regain her sanity, Caelum discovers a cache of old diaries, letters, and newspaper clippings in an upstairs bedroom of his family's house. The colorful and intriguing story they recount spans five generations of Quirk family ancestors, from the Civil War era to Caelum's own troubled childhood. Piece by piece, Caelum reconstructs the lives of the women and men whose legacy he bears. Unimaginable secrets emerge; long-buried fear, anger, guilt, and grief rise to the surface.
As Caelum grapples with unexpected and confounding revelations from the past, he also struggles to fashion a future out of the ashes of tragedy. His personal quest for meaning and faith becomes a mythic journey that is at the same time quintessentially contemporary -- and American.
The Hour I First Believed is a profound and heart-rending work of fiction. Wally Lamb proves himself a virtuoso storyteller, assembling a variety of voices and an ensemble of characters rich enough to evoke all of humanity.
Rating About Books The Hour I First Believed
Ratings: 3.82 From 55205 Users | 6470 ReviewsCrit About Books The Hour I First Believed
While I can understand why the reviews of this novel range from hot to cold, I loved it. I can not think of the last time I read a novel that contained so many current events and issues, all under the same cover.I thought Lamb took a huge risk by weaving fictional characters in with the Columbine tragedy, but it worked. Not many authors could combine the two with such sensitivity. I thought his character development absolutely perfect.I do admit that some of the thesis was a bit long andThis was not an easy book to read. For all the effort I put into it, Wally Lamb should have been standing on the last page offering me a sash, a trophy, and large sums of money. It kind of turned into a joke as every night I would tell my husband what the new plotline was. Some of the subjects were: Adultery, Columbine, PTSD, Drug Addiction, Murder, Womens prisons (In great detail), buried corpses (in greater detail) and a paper about civil war times (in RIDICULOUS detail). Not my favorite.
For those in my book club, you will hear this in person eventually so just ignore.Here goes ...Why is it that in an era of 'Green' being the new Black, of ADD being the new normal, and 'fast and snippy' the new 'slow and steady,' do otherwise talented authors suddenly feel the need to knock down innocent trees and waste our time in a most achronistic fashion? With Lamb's new book, he successfully joins the ranks of Russo and Sittenfeld (and I am sure others) who follow up perfectly wonderful and
Ahhh! Don't bother! Too long! Too many plots and characters, and it just drove me crazy. I like this author alot. I've heard him interviewed, and he's a cool guy, and I give him credit for trying to address the Columbine thing, but there were just way too many other stories, and I ended up feeling really unfullfilled after a very, very, long book. Where are the editors these days?
It truly pains me to give this book only two stars, but after struggling through it, I can't bring myself to give it more. There are definitely redeeming qualities about this novel, and ultimately I ended up getting something out of it. But it was so hard to push through, and it was such a disappointment to me after loving his previous two novels. This book is just SO all over the map, and after awhile it lost me. Bottom line, I just didn't much care about the characters. Everything ends up
This is a heavy, but gripping read. In the back of my mind I wonder how the people who were involved with Columbine will handle the inevitable media attention to the case but the novel has me hooked.Caelum is trying to live in the aftermath - guilt because he could have said something about the two students; guilt because he wasn't in the building at the time; guilt because his wife was. And Maureen isn't coping. His life has turned 360 and he's struggling to see the future.So far (about a third
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