The Hour I First Believed: A Novel

Overview

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. One critic called Wally Lamb a "modern-day Dostoyevsky," whose characters struggle not only with their respective pasts, but with a "mocking, sadistic God" in whom they don't believe but to whom they turn, nevertheless, in times of trouble (New York Times).

In his new novel, 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.

Editorial Reviews

Lamb's third novel tackles the Columbine high school shooting head on as he places his fictional protagonists into the horrific events of April 1999. Caelum and his wife, Maureen, move to Colorado for teaching jobs at Columbine not long before the shootings. As the events unfold, Maureen finds herself in harms way but luckily survives, only to be haunted by the occurrence. Narrator George Guidall reads with an earnest, familiar voice. He draws listeners into this fascinating tale with nothing more than raw emotion and honesty; rarely does such a straightforward performance tap into the human psyche so effectively. A HarperCollins hardcover. (Nov.)

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Author Information

Bio of Wally Lamb

Wally Lamb's first two novels, She's Come Undone (Simon & Schuster/Pocket, 1992) and I Know This Much Is True (HarperCollins/ReganBooks, 1998), were # 1 New York Times bestsellers, New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and featured titles of Oprah's Book Club. I Know This Much Is True was a Book of the Month Club main selection and the June 1999 featured selection of the Bertelsman Book Club, the national book club of Germany. Between them, She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True have been translated into eighteen languages. Lamb is also the editor of the nonfiction anthologies Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters (HarperCollins/ReganBooks, 2003) and I'll Fly Away (HarperCollins, 2007), collections of autobiographical essays which evolved from a writing workshop Lamb facilitates at Connecticut's York Correctional Institute, a maximum-security prison for women. He has served as a Connecticut Department of Corrections volunteer from 1999 to the present.

Customer Reviews

• Interesting Read

  Posted December 18, 2008 by Wynd, Houston/Europe/The World

  Great predominant story line...but cluttered up with too many characters, issues, and directions. Not bad, though. Would not read again.

• Can I give it 3 and 1/2 stars?

  Posted January 11, 2009 by EBook Newbie, L.A.

  Although I enjoyed this book, too many crises happen to one person. Sadly, it takes all of these things to make the unlikeable protagonist likeable. Lamb gives a long journey to Cae, and that gives the reader a long journey as well, but I would have liked to find myself rooting for this man a lot sooner. Cae's wife is not all the likeable either. What saves the book is that the supporting characters are quirky and interesting--from the damaged high school student to the owners of a local bakery.
  
  Although character strength is a Lamb specialty, I appreciated the real current events and the close-to-real history that Lamb used throughout the book.

• Wally did not dissapoint

  Posted January 28, 2009 by Terry, Portland

  great fan of Wally Lamb waited a long time for a new book form him. Hope to see more from him

• Slow start, good ending

  Posted March 15, 2009 by stlps, St. Louis

  I devoured Wally Lamb's first two books, but had a hard time staying interested at the beginning of this book. The main characters are not very sympathetic. The Columbine angle was almost too sad and horrifying of an event to stay interested in a fictional story. Even Wally Lamb writes he had a hard time starting this book. Just when I was about to give up, the story picked up when Caelum began looking outside of himself at events going on around him and looking into the past to understand the present. The quirky characters add depth to the story and redeem it in the end. Highly recommend reading the book.

Additional Info

Imprint

HarperCollins Publishers

Filesize

2.20 MB

Number of Pages

752

eBook ISBN

9780061772399