Wally Lamb's empathy for incarcerated women and his commitment to prison reform are again apparent in his latest work

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Review by Rebecca Higgins

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A Wally Lamb novel is never light, either to read or to carry. His latest, The Hour I First Believed, is 723 pages and tangles with the darkest events in recent American history, including the massacre at Columbine, Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. Layered on top of this bleak canvas is the story of Caelum Quirk, a middle-aged English teacher who finds himself living back in his childhood home and unravelling truths about his family and identity.

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Wally Lamb

At the same time he is forced to cope with a series of personal tragedies. Through Caelum, Lamb distills his country's recent griefs into a story of individual survival.

Early in the novel, while Caelum's on a flight, a fellow passenger shares the chaos-complexity theory, "that one where a butterfly flaps its wings in Africa and it triggers a tornado in Texas." This notion of repercussion is the hook on which the novel is hung and, through this, Lamb also investigates what it means to cope and survive.

Lamb explores the long and uneven process of healing for those left living. He has done his research on post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues; it shows in the struggles of his characters. Although his central characters and their stories are fictional, Lamb names and honours the actual victims and survivors of the events he weaves into his story.

As he explains in the afterword: "To name the dead is to confront the meaning of their lives and their deaths, and to acknowledge, as well, the strength and suffering of the loved ones they had to leave behind."

I read Lamb's first novel, She's Come Undone, several years ago, and I was impressed by his aptitude for voice. The novel is written fro the perspective of a young woman, and I recall flipping to the front cover again and again to reassure myself that it was not, in fact, written by a woman.

That skill is evident again in his latest work, particularly in a beautifully written chapter delivered in the voice of Caelum as a little boy and in emails from Caelum's friend and letters from the 19th century.

The book is like a literary collage, in fact. Lamb includes everything from newspaper headlines to mental health assessments, which adds texture to the stories. The variety encourages the reader to continue, even when the massive tome feels unending.

There is so much good stuff in here, but it goes on too long. Lamb worked on the book for nine years and it shows, but, at the end, it feels a little like he's tying the strings together too quickly, as if his editor was on the phone again telling him it was his last chance to get the thing in, already.

Despite this, however, The Hour I First Believed is an important read. A dark novel infused with hope, its scaffolding is made of political outrage and questions of faith. Lamb's empathy for incarcerated women and his commitment to prison reform are again apparent in this book. As a creative writing teacher at York Correctional Institution, Lamb has previously published two collaborative works with women he taught. Both are compelling collections that challenge old ideas about prisoners and reflect the compassion and humanity of both Lamb and his students.

The title The Hour I First Believed is derived from a line in the hymn Amazing Grace, which serves as a sort of quiet anthem for his book. Caelum's path is blocked by tragedy again and again, but he struggles on, echoing passages from the beautiful hymn:

Through many dangers, toils and snares

I have already come;

'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.

Rebecca Higgins is a writer, social worker and teacher living in Fredericton.