Fiction #8 in 2009 – Testimony by Anita Shreve

Testimony by Anita Shreve

From Publishers Weekly (amazon.com):

Shreve’s novels (Body Surfing; The Weight of Water) benefit from propulsive plots, and her mixed latest, with its timely theme of debauchery among children of privilege, does not lack in this regard. The first paragraph foreshadows a tragedy in which three marriages are destroyed, the lives of three students at a private school in Vermont are ruined, and death claims an innocent victim. The precipitating event is a sex tape involving three members of the boys’ basketball team and a freshman girl. Beginning with an account of the debacle by the Avery School’s then headmaster, and segueing to the voices of the participants in the orgy, plus their parents and others touched by the scandal, the narrative explores the widening consequences of a single event. Shreve’s character delineation is astute, and the novel’s moral questions—ranging from the boys’ behavior to the headmaster’s breach of legal ethics to the guilt of those involved in the death—are salient if heavy-handed, while the female characters are wicked in the way women have always been stereotypically portrayed. The novel is clever, but the revolving cast of narrators often feels predictable and forced, keeping the novel on the near side of credible.

My thoughts:

• Each chapter is told from different characters’ perspective, so it is interesting to read a book written like so. Though there are quite a few characters, so sometimes I found myself asking, “who is this again?”

• Some reviewers found the content/text a bit too graphic. I didn’t find it too bad, probably I’d read worse (happens a lot when you are interested in reading true crimes!). It is a sensitive topic, and I guess the fact that I don’t have any children (especially if they are teenagers) made it easier to read or it may hit too close to home. Especially since this was supposedly inspired by a real life school scandal.

• The story can probably be shortened a little (not that I don’t like reading long books, but it is an easy read as far as the writing goes since it’s quite engaging (not to be confused with it’s not an easy topic to read for some). Though there is just something missing… you want to feel for the characters but they don’t touch you so.