The Hour I First Believed - Wally Lamb

This is my first installment for Cannon Ball Read III.


I loved Wally Lamb's previous two novels, although it took me some time to embrace his second, so I was excited to begin The Hour I First Believed . I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I have the same love hate with this book that I had with I know this Much is True . I started that book four times before I finished it and I only stuck it out after both my Mom and my Sister swore me a blood oath that I would love it if I could get through the first 100 pages. That's a lot of pages to force yourself through, but they were right and I was so glad I did. TFHIB was the opposite. I found the first half totally mesmerizing and the second half lost me a little.

The story center on Caelum, a school teacher and his wife, Mo, who survives the events of Columbine. They are both employed at the school, but Caelum is out of town when the massacre happens. The first half of the book centers around Mo trying to regain her sanity and Caelum trying to navigate living with this new woman who used to be his wife. I found it unbelievably compelling. The ways in which Caelum and Mo cling to a relationship that is fraying from every direction, and which we slowly learn may not have been the kind of relationship songs are written about anyway is convincing. As is Mo's struggle to deal with real life after her tragedy. Lamb depicts her in a way where as the reader you half want to shake her and say snap out of it and half realize that might just be exactly how you would react yourself.

The problem is, the tragedies just keep coming and eventually it seems like too much. The point of the collateral damage is compelling, but begins to feel false. At the same time, Caelum begins his epic quest for meaning. His quest parallels that of his grandmother, whose letters and journal are discovered in the matriarchal home and then researched and presented as a doctoral Dissertation by the women's studies tenant to whom he rents his attic. Really? The sections of Caelum's history, via letters etc is distracting and doesn't do much to propel the story. I found myself speed reading through them wanting to get back to Caelum's "real" life.

All in all, it's a good book. It is, of course, also a long book. Although it didn't keep me riveted all the way through, I do think the opening half and the moments throughout that look closely at victimhood and recovery and the small steps one must make to keep living are so vividly and convincingly told that it would be a miss not to read them.