The Hour I First Believed: A Novel

Wally Lamb

Oct 2009 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this ebook

New York Times Bestseller

The profound and compelling story of a personal quest for meaning and faith from Wally Lamb, #1 New York Times bestselling author of She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True

“The beauty of The Hour I First Believed, a soaring novel as amazingly graceful as the classic hymn that provides the title, is that Lamb never loses sight of the spark of human resilience. . . . Lamb’s wonderful novel offers us the promise and power of hope.”
—Miami Herald

When 47-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 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 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 back east. But the effects of chaos are not so easily put right, and further tragedy ensues.

In The Hour I First Believed, Wally 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.

 

Ratings and reviews

It took me a little while to get into this one honestly. I love wally lamb but after about 80 pages I put it away and went on to other books. During a dry spell I started up again and about 2 pages in I was hooked (if I had just waited a little longer the first time). From then on it was great except the family history stuff.....I just couldn't get into that. I would rate this lowest of the books of his (almost all of them) that I've read but he's such a good writer it's still a really good book.

It lacks the continuity of 'We Are Water' as well as the insightful character development of 'She's Come Undone'. I also prefer 'I Know This Much Is True' over this sentimental but overdrawn work. Not to mention that there are a lot of grammatical and format errors. It seems like the process of writing it was rushed and erratic. I expected more from Wally Lamb but remain a devoted reader.

Wally Lamb is my favorite author. His writing is brilliant and sophisticated. I reccomend any of his books to anyone who appreciates deep human emotion. He not only writes fiction but has a unique way of combining fiction with non fiction. This book is a prime example of that. A great read. I highly recommend this book and any other he has published.

About the author

Wally Lamb is the author of five New York Times bestselling novels: She’s Come Undone, I Know This Much Is True, The Hour I First Believed, Wishin’ and Hopin’, and We Are Water. His first two works of fiction, She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, were both #1 New York Times bestsellers and selections of Oprah’s Book Club. Lamb edited Couldn’t Keep It to Myself, I’ll Fly Away, and You Don’t Know Me, three volumes of essays from students in his writing workshop at York Correctional Institution, a women’s prison in Connecticut, where he has been a volunteer facilitator for two decades. He lives in Connecticut and New York.