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"The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb, (Harper, 740 pages, $29.95)
Wally Lamb wrote "She's Come Undone" and "I Know This Much Is True." His latest, "The Hour I First Believed," immerses the tragic Columbine shootings within an expansive fictional framework.
Q Did you have difficulty writing this?
A I did. I had to survive my good fortune — the bestseller stuff -— going from thousands to millions of readers. It was a joyride, but then the ride was over. I had to come up with something else. I was intimidated by that. I was a little too focused on reader reaction.
Q Why Columbine?
A One day I sat down and Googled "school shootings"... this tidal wave of stuff came back at me. I was very disturbed by the videos that the shooters, Klebold and Harris, had left behind — both as a high school teacher for many years and as the dad of a then teenaged son .... I was suddenly in the middle of it — emotionally involved in the sadness of that.
Q Klebold and Harris aren't characters, yet their presence is felt on every page,
A I felt that rather than try to psychoanalyze them I would use their actual voices partly as a reminder of just how lost and really depraved they were and how viciously they sought to wreak some kind of vengeance. I went back and forth with whether or not to do that. Then I just took the gag off them and let them speak for themselves.
Q You're in Denver now — how does that feel?
A I don't mean to speak for the people out here nor do I pretend to understand the level of pain and the terrible ripple effect that it has had in the Denver area. I do have a sense from what people have said that they feel these victims and this tragedy should not be forgotten. We're almost 10 years away from it at this point — I think in some ways we need to learn from all this — hopefully, to prevent other things.
Q Do you keep wall charts to track loose ends?
A Have you seen the Russell Crowe film "A Beautiful Mind?" There's one scene where his wife goes into his office and there's stuff all over the walls; pictures and scrawlings. I hate to say it, but that's kind of what my office looked like.
Q What's your structure?
A The novel is in two parts. Part one investigates chaos; the way that our lives can go reeling in a whole different direction than we had planned. The second part investigates the possibility that there is some sort of guiding principle, or some universal order to things ... my work always balances despair and hope ...
Ultimately this story became an investigation of people who carry pain inside and how debilitating grief and shame can be ... silence can just make people kind of sick. I think it needs to be talked about ... the way I'm different from Caelum (the narrator) is that he's a cynic and I'm not. I do hold out hope.
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 12/7/08; 2:24:55 PM
from the dept.
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