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.
