The Hour I First Believed

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It's a hit!

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... (show more)

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. (show less)

 

 

by Holly Britton Jennings

No, it's a flop!

First, I must say that I loved She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True. I was excited to discover The Hour I First Believed: A Novel at the... (show more)

First, I must say that I loved She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True. I was excited to discover The Hour I First Believed: A Novel at the local library.

I'm sad to say I was disappointed. While the story was well written, there were times when I found myself wanting to skip over pages. Some parts were very interesting, but other parts were so boring I had to force myself to keep reading. Also, it was far too political for me, but that may just be a personal issue and something unlikely to affect the enjoyment of this book by other readers. Another issue I had with this book is how the character of Caelum Quirk could have been Dominick Birdsey, part 2. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not.

One thing I really enjoyed about this book was how Mr. Lamb incorporated characters from his previous books. I noticed that he did that in I Know This Much Is True as well, and it just makes it seem more realistic to me.

I'm not sorry I read this, and I would recommend it to other fans of Wally Lamb, with the understanding that it is nowhere near as good as the prior two (at least in my opinion!). (show less)

 

 

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  I had been waiting years for Lamb to publish again since I really enjoyed his first 2 books. But I was disappointed in this one. I just could not connect with any of the characters - now, I'm not without sympathy, but Maureen seemed to be whiney and mean, and just weak overall. Velvet could have been such an interesting character, since she served as a surrogate child, but I felt that Lamb never dug deep enough into who she was in a way that I could grab on to. The historical part of the nove... (show more)

  I had been waiting years for Lamb to publish again since I really enjoyed his first 2 books. But I was disappointed in this one. I just could not connect with any of the characters - now, I'm not without sympathy, but Maureen seemed to be whiney and mean, and just weak overall. Velvet could have been such an interesting character, since she served as a surrogate child, but I felt that Lamb never dug deep enough into who she was in a way that I could grab on to. The historical part of the novel was just out of place for me, and honestly, I skipped over a lot of it because it just went on and on. Another reviewer liked the way Lamb wrote in previous characters, but I didn't catch that - I guess it's been just too long since I last read his books. All in all, the story is interesting, and I am sure it will hit the right note with a lot of readers, though for me it wasn't explored in the right directions (and way too long). (show less)

   

   

  by Debra Yelen Murphy on Mar 10, 2009 at 04:06PM

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  Good, but not great. I devoured the first half of this book, but found the second half ("Mantis") to be slow and lacked the same intensity of the first half. They two sections had two different tones, almost as if the author intended for them to be separate stories. I lost connection with the main character, Caleum, during the second half. Towards the end, the book became so depressing I was yearning to finish it to move onto a more peppy read. Needless to say, the way Lamb ends thi... (show more)

  Good, but not great. I devoured the first half of this book, but found the second half ("Mantis") to be slow and lacked the same intensity of the first half. They two sections had two different tones, almost as if the author intended for them to be separate stories. I lost connection with the main character, Caleum, during the second half. Towards the end, the book became so depressing I was yearning to finish it to move onto a more peppy read. Needless to say, the way Lamb ends this book only reiterated the sadness of the novel. Some may say that the last line (also the title of the novel) could be interpreted as hopeful, but I think I was so beat up by what Caleum had gone through by the end that I was closed the book with a sigh of relief. "She Comes Undone" still takes the cake for me. (show less)

   

   

  by Tessia Montañez on Feb 09, 2009 at 02:53PM

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