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The Hour I First Believed – Wally Lamb

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I just finished this book a whopping 723+ pages, in a matter of 2 days. It was like something was compelling me to read this as much as I could and once I started, well that was a whole other ball game in itself.
I learned of Wally Lamb, through Oprah’s Book Club, when his 2nd book I Know this Much is True was on her list of books to read. Back ooh about 8-9 years ago. Back then, I was married, in Nursing School full time, with a 12 yr old and a baby doing full time studies, burnt out and needing a break from it all. So, I was planning a trip to the U.K. for a friend’s wedding and I knew the flight was going to be boring as all hell…. Flights usually are, so when I was in Chapters I went and found it and put it in my carry on for the 8 hour flight.
I started reading it when I was stuck at the airport (major snow storm, and yes the middle of February) and I was hooked. I have read that book a total of maybe 5 more times since then, but before I lent it out to a friend of mine a few years ago, and haven’t gotten it back yet.
So in this long awaited novel, he integrated some major things that have happened since his last. Columbine, Katrina, Mental Illness once again, Grief, Love, and Family.
Caelum Quirk is married to Maureen. It’s his third marriage, and her second. They are living in Three Rivers (remember this town?) They live a quiet life until “Mo” has had an affair and after all of the legalities are finished and they have gone through counselling, decide to move to get a fresh start somewhere else. So, they move to Colorado, he is a Teacher and she is a Nurse – gets a job at one of the high school, and so does she as a part time nurse. Things are good, they settle in and get to know the town and the people they talk to on a daily basis. Well, one day Caleum’s Aunt dies, and while back east, something happens at the school which will change both of their lives forever. The Columbine Shooting.
Rushing back to Colorado, and missing his Aunt’s funeral; Caleum is a mess, worried, inconsolable, wanting to know whether Mo is fine or not, or if she is dead. After he finds her safe, but in a state of fear of nearly being killed by one of the assailants; she doesn’t get over it.
Wally Lamb has this way of engaging you in the first sentence eloquently, and slyly, and taking you into the the story as if you are there living it as a fly on the wall. Ever feeling as you go along into the story, he takes you not just superficiously into the characters lives but way into it going back in history to see why they are doing it, and having you turn page by page not wanting to put it down and deal with real life. I laughed, I cried, and felt so many emotions as I read all 723 odd pages, not to mention his difficulty with starting the story. I could identify with all if not some of the characters as the story lead it path in and out of my consciousness.
As always, A great profound book that I will proudly display on my bookshelf for many years and probably will read a few more times, as I have with She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much is True.

Update – Fabulous Fall Fiction

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So far I have read 6 books for the Fabulous Fall Fiction Challenge. I have to say all of them are great and thought provoking to say the least.

These are what I have read and one more on the way…shortly!

The Given Day – Dennis Lehane

Goldengrove – Francine Prose

The Sealed Letter – Emma Donoghue

Home – Marilynne Robinson

Ritual – Mo Hayder

Anathem – Neal Stephenson

I also am currently reading The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb, as soon as I started reading the first sentence of the first chapter I am sooo hooked, I cannot put it down… suffice to say, my housework has suffered, among other things. But as you all well know once you have that one book that you cannot put down on the table for any lenght of time..without it feeling like it is withdrawal… well you know what I mean …

Ahem, back to reading !

** Edit ** Just finished The Hour I First Believed…. so that is 7 books I have read for the challenge

The Given Day – Dennis Lehane

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The Given Day is set in post war one and the Spanish flu epidemic, among a change in the midst. Between a white and a black family Dennis Lehane gives us an impressive blend of history, change and violence.

The Coughlin’s have an impressive history with the Boston Police Department. Danny is a patrolman, and his father is a captain. On Danny’s travels throughout his patrols and in the station house, there is discord – not enough money, have to pay for their uniforms and equipment. And, there isn’t any kind of benefits, and they are paid lower then other jobs in the city. There is talk of forming a union, and his father, and his best friend want to know more so they have him infiltrate all of the groups in the city not to mention their own group to get more information.

Luther Lawrence is unemployed. He used to work at the docks, and any other job he could find, but his girlfriend tells him of Oklahoma. So they move, end up getting married, and find jobs there. Until something happens. Luther leaves his girlfriend then wife in Tulsa, as he makes his way back North where he goes to Boston. He ends up working for the Coughlin’s, and the newly formed NAACP.

As these two stories start off individually, and then combine, it is clear that everyone has things they believe in. The story is about life, promises made, promises kept, things that will inevitably change, and some will stay the same. It is a easy read, although it is quite a large book, Dennis Lehane is a master of story writing, draws you in and in a way makes you know everything about the characters and the history of the situation. I have read some reviews where they have said that it was too drawn out, it should have been shorter, but I do not agree. I felt as though it was a perfect blend of history and feeling – not as a person reading it but the characters in the book as well.

This is the 6th book I have read for the Fabulous Fall Reading Challenge

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Goldengrove – Francine Prose

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I am utterly speechless…and weeping..

Goldengrove is lyrical like poetry, spellbinding, keeps you in the story even when you need to put it down and deal with real life.

This is the story of a family who loses a daughter, and afterwards, the most painful feeling you could ever feel. I know this in a personal sense, when I was 11 my brother who was 21 was killed in a car accident, then 2 years later my mother dies of a heart attack. You have the blurry glaze about you, you do and say things that you wouldn’t normally do, it rocks you to the core..Leaving you with the feeling of what is this, and did I deserve it.

Nico is the daughter who is left grieving since being so close to her sister, going through the stages of what she thinks she is helping her dead sister’s boyfriend and herself get or at least try to get through their grief.

The Grief that one feels as a family however close or not is something that you cannot describe in words I feel. You are feeling so many things at once, and cannot stop them from happening. You act differently, do things that you wouldn’t normally do. In this instance, it all happens and then some.

While I was about halfway through, something tugged at me in the book -

“But actually,” he said, “the strangest part is that she was alive and now she isn’t. That’s the thing I can’t get past. I can’t get my head around it. The absence. How someone can be here one minute, and the next they are gone. You tell them everything in your life and then they…can’t be reached. Unlisted number forever. I keep thinking that this little…episode, this little trick will end, and she’ll be back again, and it will have been some cruel joke.”

When I finished it tonight, while weeping, I hugged it and thought how can Francine get into the heart and soul of people grieving and knowing exactly how someone feels when they are going through it, or if she has felt grief on this magnitude in the past to be able to effectively portray it in life shattering wide open eyes. If you haven’t felt grief before you certainly will in this novel.

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Fabulous Fall Fiction What I have Read So Far

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Well, I’m back to reading … after the glasses disaster, and the break I needed away from reading for a bit… It lasted about a week. The books on my new bookcase were making me feel guilty letting them lie there sad and not being read as they should be. Do I sound like just a bit of a nut yet ???

This is as far as I have reached in the challenge so far…

The Sealed Letter – Emma Donoghue

Home – Marilynne Robinson

Ritual – Mo Hayder

Anathem – Neal Stephenson

I have The Hour I first believed and The Given Day on order ..hopefully they will arrive soon, although, Wally Lamb’s book isn’t due until after the 11th of November.

I have Goldengrove on my bookcase waiting ever so patiently to be next in queue..along with some other books I have been wanting to read that I have purchased – Passchendaele, Remembering the Bones, and Dreaming Again, as well one or two more coming in the mail.

** Edit** I have read Goldengrove so that makes my total to 5 books read for the reading challenge and #6 is being read now – The Given Day by Dennis Lehane (edited November 21,2008)

Ritual – Mo Hayder

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I was quite enthralled when reading this book. I could NOT put it down once I started it.

Flea, is a diver on the police force. One day while investigating a case, they come across a hand…just one and that’s all they find. As the investigation continues however, they find something more then what they bargained for. Rituals, Beliefs, Drugs, and most of all fear of the unknown – things that have happened in the past that affect their present day lives that eventually bring what they are investigating bring everything into focus, and questions are answered. And the story has it’s ending.

I found the book to lay heavy on the peoples backgrounds at first, but as the dialogue went on it entirely made sense. It was interesting to see how other people’s customs and beliefs are different and sometimes way out of the western world conscience happen. Sometimes, we are a bit blind to the fact that things happen in other cultures we rarely hear or even begin to contemplate. What is normal for us certainly not is normal for them. Culture is a weird and complex thing at times.

When reading this book, I was waiting ever so patiently, as events unfolded. It was SO hard, reading page to page, going from character to character wondering what was going to happen next. And then as I thought I knew who the bad guy was – I was wrong. As it twisted and turned the pages and the storyline, It was someone I would have never guessed, but thinking back to when the character was introduced it was entirely possible.

Mo Hayder in my opinion is a great writer, I will most definitely be reading the next in the Walking Man Series to see lies ahead.

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The Sealed Letter – Emma Donoghue

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The sealed letter is one of a time long gone in England in the 1800′s where 2 friends meet their acquaintances once again after a 7 year silence between the two of them. Fido runs into her once friend just down the street near her press, where she is working as editor.

As time goes on, Fido’s friend who likes to use people to her advantage…Once her husband has found out her infidelity’s, he sets out on a grim and very public divorce from her. With all of the trials and tribulations of a trial set in full court, and then later on in the papers. In old England, at the time it stated that only 2 divorces were granted a year, then after the law changed, it was more then 100.

As in my own life, when I was going through a rather nasty settlement, it occurred to me reading this book, that much hasn’t changed. For instance, the parties trying to out maneuver the other to gain the win. You would think that in that time, with propriety, manners and a certain way, things wouldn’t have gone on like this, but civilly. I guess times do not change too much in that regard.

It was a good read, from a Canadian author. It was easier to follow then say Jane Austen, but that was a different time period all together.

It was also interesting to see how the law has changed as well, eventually giving way for women to be able to go to university, to vote, and to ultimately have a voice about political situations, things happening in the world, and just a general consensus about everything.



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Inside Out Girl – Tish Cohen

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Inside Out Girl is the story of a young girl Olivia, who has a non verbal learning disorder. Len is her father who has been raising her alone since her mother died in a car accident 5 years before.

NLD is when people cannot interpret physical clues, which means Olivia is a bit weird, harassed at school for being a weirdo, and bullied.

Rachel is a single mother of two teenagers a boy and a girl, who continually test her boundaries. Being a publisher of a famous and well known magazine….Which is failing. And has a secret she’s kept to herself for 16 years.

As Rachel and Len meet, and begining to date, the hi jinks of the children, not to mention Olivia getting lost in a mall, is a very heart wrenching, real book. I just picked this book up from the library this afternoon, and just finished half an hour ago. I was literally engrossed entertained and sad at how the story develops, but yet there is a happy ending in the end.

I would absolutely love to see how in the end how things work out with the blended family. There are many important issues that need to be addressed when they happen or on the verge of happening in today’s hustle and bustle society. And being different doesn’t mean that you are a freak, or not worthy of friends. It just mean you are different and the need to be accepted as you are, instead of being judged as to what you are not.


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Home – Marilynne Robinson

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Marilynne Robinson makes you weep in her novels.

Home is the story of a family. Glory has come back to Gilead to take care of her ailing father. Going through the old house, she comes across many memories from the past and flood back to her, or her siblings, friends, and neighbours. She can’t his it very well though, she is the one in the family that doesn’t his her emotions easily…and cries at the drop of a hat.

Jack, her brother comes home finally. When Jack was younger, he felt he wasn’t part of the family ever, he was the loner, always going on his own adventures, and getting into trouble. Until, the facts of their father ill and soon to die, makes them all come to the house in Gilead, to pay final respects, and visit with dad.

Glory and Jack haven’t had the greatest of relationships to begin with, but as the days go by, they get closer and closer to the point that Jack is asking Glory for advice. As the story progresses, and Jack’s problems or at least some of them come to light – Alcoholism, Shame, Depression, they try to forge some kind of forgiveness, and absolution from the past deeds, and hope to move on.

Home was a poignant, heartbreaking novel. I could feel some pasts events in my own life come through the book; and feel what I felt when it was happening to me. Home takes you slowly and swiftly into the story and makes you want to embrace the characters in their times of pain and suffering.

Although, all of their problems aren’t solved in the end it gives you pause for thought.

A great book, I will be looking for Gilead and Housekeeping to read as well.


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Coventry – Helen Humphreys

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I have to admit when I started this book yesterday, I was taken away and near mid way through I got this unrelenting ache in my heart as the story progressed. Helen Humphrey knows how to write in a way that will tug at what you are feeling and make your heart yearn to the characters in the book. Mid way through, I had these feelings and utter connection with Harriet as her husband is sent off to war, and then learns shortly there after that he is gone, presumed dead, but unaccounted for.

I had to stick the book down for a bit, the feelings I was feeling at the time were something that I had felt before, and thought I had dealt with in a place far far away, but yet in hindsight, sometimes it does come back to kick you in the ass. And it most certainly did yesterday.

Poignant, Heart wrenching, Classic, what other words can I use about this book. A must read for sure, ooh I know another one – tear jerker. I was engrossed in it from the first page as I was at the end. The ending was simple, and somewhat left you in that place where it ended. I’m not so sure that I liked it, I will have to think about.


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Takeover – Lisa Black

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9780061699665WOW is all I can say at this point. What an amazingly put together book. Lisa Black not only uses her background as a Crime Scene Investigator, but also uses the Tips the FBI use to negotiate. I was amazed at how smoothly she had taken the story from a simple murder to what it ends on. I wish I could write the way that she does or at least a smidgen of how she does it.

It all starts at the scene of a crime, not far from the murdered persons house, then all of a sudden goes from there to downtown of Cleveland. The Federal Reserve Bank. As time goes on however, things take shape and the two scenes are connected… Only thing is, they aren’t quite sure how they are connected. Theresa the CSI, rhythmically puts all of the pieces together in this suspenseful, cannot put down book.

I won’t say much about the plot, I will only give a bit of the story… it goes fast from there, trust me, it is a book you will not put down, or you will put it down and want to go back to it immediately. I loved it.

It is truly a must read, for anyone that is in the action thriller suspense kind of genre.


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