Costco Connection - December 2008

book
pick
Reading is believing
Signed book
gıveaway

Wally Lamb’s newest
novel explores hope
born from chaos

By Stephanie E. Ponder

“It was a blessing, but a double-edged sword,” says Lamb, who admits he went through a cre- ative paralysis in the late ’90s as he kept thinking about his readers’ expectations. After nearly a decade of writing and researching, Lamb is back with a new novel, this month’s Book Buyer’s Pick, The Hour I First Believed.

IN THE 1990s, Wally Lamb was living an author’s dream. His first two novels, She’s Come Undone (Pocket Books, 1992) and I Know This Much Is True ( Regan-Books, 1998) were selected for Oprah’s Book Club in 1997 and 1998.

ELENA SEIBERT

While looking for the right story to tell, Lamb kept reflecting on a 1997 school shooting in Paducah, Kentucky—particularly a story he’d heard about the shooter’s sister. Then, on the afternoon of April 20, 1999, as Lamb prepared for an award ceremony— he’d won the New England Book Award—he heard his wife saying “Oh no, oh no.” She was watching footage of the Columbine shootings.

That’s when Lamb began his story in earnest.

The Hour I First Believed begins four days before the shooting at Columbine. Lamb created two central fictional characters, Caelum and Maureen Quirk, but also included the real victims from that day along with the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

“I wanted to deal with it as honestly and credibly as I could, not sensationally,” Lamb tells The Connection from his home in Connecticut. “To bring it up and remember it is to help prevent those incidents from happening again.”

Lamb places Maureen in the school’s library when the shootings happen, while Caelum, a teacher at the school, is back East dealing with a dying aunt. The story unfolds as the Quirks, particularly Maureen, deal with the events and aftermath of that day. In hopes of helping Maureen to escape the memories, the couple moves back to Caelum’s family farm. However, Caelum finds demons of his own as he explores his family’s history back to the Civil War and up through his childhood—including the farm’s proximity to the Quirk Correctional Institute, an all-women prison started by his great-grandmother.

Because the novel took so long to write—and is more than 700 pages long—the plot couldn’t help but mirror what was happening in the United States,

such as 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. “I live in the fictional world when I write, and also the real world,” Lamb says. “All of that happened in the span of 10 years. It was up for grabs.”

Aside from the national tragedies, Lamb’s story also reflects how he was spending his personal time. During the summer of 1999 an old school friend asked him to speak to the inmates at the York Correctional Institution in Niantic, Connecticut, a high-security facility and the only all-women institution in the state. Although hesitant at first, Lamb describes how, at the end of his 90-minute talk about being a writer, one woman in the group stood up and thanked him. She also asked if he’d be back. He said, “I’ll be back, but you have to write something.”

Both sides kept their word, and Lamb has since helped inmates at the institution publish two volumes of essays, Couldn’t Keep It to Myself ( Regan-Books, 2003) and I’ll Fly Away (HarperCollins, 2007).

With The Hour I First Believed on the verge of publication, Lamb says he already has his radar up for new ideas. He’s been revisiting the works of writer Joseph Campbell and the Bible for a

story to serve as the b ackbone of his next effort. ^{W ally} ^LambHis hope for

The Hour I First

Believed is that it wil l help people reflect on the last 10 years. “I”m not saying people ha ve to come to the sam e conclusions, but I th ink reflection is necessary ,” he says. “You do the bestyou you can and send [your n ovel] out into the world. P eople havetherighttofin dinit what they need to fin d.” C

COSTCO HAS 50 signed copies of Wally Lamb’s The Hour I First Believed to give away. To enter, print your name, membership number, address and daytime phone number on a postcard or letter and send it to: Wally Lamb, The Costco Connection, P.O. Box 34088, Seattle, WA 98124-1088. Or send an e-mail to giveaway@ costco.com, with “Wally Lamb” in the subject line.

No purchase is necessary. Open to legal residents of the U.S. (except Puerto Rico) who are age 18 or older at the time of entry and who are current Costco members. One entry per household. Entries must be received or postmarked by January 2, 2009.

W inners will be randomly selected and notified by mail on or before F ebruary 2, 2009. The value of the prize is $29.95. Void where pro-h ibited. Winners are responsible f or all applicable federal, state and local taxes. Odds of winning d epend on the number of eligible e ntries received. Employees o f Costco or HarperCollins and t heir families are not eligible.

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Pennie’s pick

FANS OF WALLY LAMB know from his first two novels that he tends to write about flawed and, often, alienated people. His latest novel, this month’s Book Buyer’s Pick, The Hour I First Believed, is no exception. The beauty of Lamb’s novels is that his characters feel like real people—people you want to succeed. This novel isn’t an easy read, especially the chapters about Columbine. But it is a good reminder of what the U.S. has been through in the last decade. Because the characters Caelum and Maureen Quirk, among others, manage to face tragedy and still make their way in the world, one word describes what I felt after turning the last page: hope. The Hour I First Believed is available at most Costco warehouses and on costco.com.