Several years ago, my husband purchased The Hour I First Believed for me. At the time, I had never even heard of Wally Lamb. I wouldn’t have reached for this book on my own because admittedly, I tend to gravitate toward female authors. Well, this chance encounter with a Wally Lamb novel became the springboard for my obsession with the works of this incredibly gifted writer. After quickly and easily plowing through all 730 pages, I was left speechless (a rarity for me!) and found myself wanting more. Since that time, I have read I Know This Much Is True, She’s Come Undone, We Are Water and Couldn’t Keep It to Myself. Every one of these books were just as satisfying as the first, and left me still wanting more.
Caelum Quirk is a high school English teacher who grew up on a farm in the fictional town of Three Rivers, Connecticut. His ancestors ran a local women’s prison situated near the farm. The son of an alcoholic father, Caelum struggles to open up emotionally and is working to manage his anger issues. He is on his third marriage to wife, Maureen, a school nurse. Maureen’s emotional foundation is shaky as well, the result of her own difficult childhood. Still wrestling with these issues, she tends to identify and connect strongly with vulnerable students. She forges a bond with Velvet, a troubled teen who refers to Maureen as her mother.
After moving to Littleton, Colorado, Caelum and Maureen both become employed at Columbine High School. When Caelum must return to Connecticut to care for his ailing aunt, Maureen remains in Colorado. On April 20, 1999, Maureen reports to work as she always did, never imagining what would unfold on this seemingly typical day. She and Velvet are in the school library, along with some other students and staff members, when they start to hear gunshots. Panicked students run for cover under tables. Maureen crawls into a cabinet to hide, frozen in fear as she hears the taunting voices of the shooters mocking and then killing their victims. Then, finally, it is over. Maureen has survived, but she is left with intense emotional trauma, and unable to recover from the ensuing PTSD and survivor guilt. She and Caelum move back to Connecticut, but things only get worse. As they settle into Caelum’s newly inherited farm, Maureen finds herself still unable to cope with the haunting flashbacks of that fateful spring day. Spiraling further and further downward, she turns to anti-depressants, develops an addiction, and the result is another tragedy.
Caelum’s return to his childhood home presents more problems. In addition to being forced to relive some traumatic childhood memories, he makes bombshell discoveries about his family. Old diaries and newspaper clippings reveal decades of chilling family secrets. As he sifts through this painful new knowledge, he must come to terms with the truth about his own identity and his prison reforming ancestors.
Anybody familiar with Wally Lamb’s writing is well aware of his ability to intertwine multiple stories and characters together seamlessly into one novel, and The Hour I First Believed is no exception. Lamb expertly embedded true historical events spanning over decades, some of which include the Civil War, the famous Cocoanut Grove fire, the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, and of course, the Columbine school shooting. I especially loved how Lamb interwove Quirk’s fictional post Civil War abolitionists ancestors with real-life heroes of this movement – Louisa May Alcott, Dorothea Dix and Harriet Beecher Stow being among them.
The Hour I First Believed is multi-themed and multi-layered. In addition to school shootings being the central theme, there are also elements of adultery, substance abuse, marriage, divorce, child molestation, child abuse, mental illness, war, grief, prison reform, family dysfunction, abolition, faith, abortion, and of course, trauma. Maureen’s character clearly reminds us of the deep, long lasting impact of childhood trauma, but also demonstrates the way in which trauma deepens one’s capacity for empathy and understanding. It seems that Maureen’s ability to understand and identify with troubled students was rooted in her own difficult past. Sadly, Maureen’s character also serves as a reminder that none of us are infallible, and despite our best efforts, every single one of us has a breaking point.
The Hour I First Believed is a heavy, gripping, emotional read. It has multiple moving parts, but is at no point overwhelming or confusing. I found myself drawn into each and every sub-plot, all of which were well paced, well organized and flowed beautifully. In the 700+ pages, there was no idle time. Every page offered dense substance and moved the story development forward. This novel is extremely well written, focusing on a wide range of life events over several generations, and touches on every human emotion. I highly recommend The Hour I First Believed for any adult looking for a thought-provoking, meaningful novel.
On a side note – I was pregnant with my daughter when the news broke about a school shooting in Colorado. I remember wrapping my arms around my swollen belly, thinking about the dreaded day when my innocent child would be out in the world without me there to protect her. I worry just like all parents worry, but what happened in Columbine and the additional school shootings that followed have added a whole new dimension of anxiety to parenting and to the world in general. It seems that every day, our lives become increasing vulnerable and will continue to do so until mental illness is better addressed. Our world is complex, the struggles are real, and this all continues to escalate with each new generation. I believe that over the years, the demands of life and our expectations of children have soared. Priorities have shifted. Society has broken down. Of course there are multiple factors that go into school shootings, and the layers of mental illness run deeper than anything I can possibly understand or explain. I do believe, however, that at some point we lost control. Sadly, our children are the ones who pay the price.
To purchase this book on Amazon, click here. This is an affiliate link, which only means that when you click the link and purchase the book, I receive a tiny commission at no additional cost to you. My opinions remain my own.
See my review for Wally Lamb’s I Know This Much Is True here.
“They did not kill their spirits. They did not kill our spirits either” – Tom Mauser, father of Columbine victim Daniel Mauser (denverpost.com)
