Wally Lamb's The Hour I First Believed Now in Paperback! Listen to Him on Book Club Girl on Air Now

Wally Lamb's books have been book club staples ever since his first book, She's Come Undone was published (waaay back at the beginning of my publishing career). Now, his most recent novel, The Hour I First Believed is just out in paperback and is ripe for book club picking!

In The Hour I First Believed, Lamb tells the story of forty-seven-year-old high school teacher Caelum Quirk and his younger wife, Maureen, a school nurse, who move to Littleton, Colorado, and get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, Caelum returns home to Three Rivers, 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 carefully premeditated, 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 in Three Rivers. But the effects of chaos are not so easily put right, and further tragedy ensues in this extraordinary tour de force, at once a meditation on the human condition and an unflinching yet compassionate evocation of character.

Browse inside The Hour I First Believed, check out the reading group guide, and listen to Wally's amazing Book Club Girl on Air show from earlier in the year below.

Comments

[Julie P.]

I absolutely adored this book! And the radio show was terrific too!

[Melissa Mc]

Can I ask...what is up with all the covers featuring kids floating in the air? This one...Kelly Corrigan's "The Middle Place," Rebecca Well's new book, "The Crowning Glory of Cally Lilly Ponder," -- I know there are others, just can't think of them off the top of my head.
Just curious...

[rhapsodyinbooks]

This book looks so dauntingly long to me, but it sounds like there isn't anyone who isn't strongly affected by it. Thanks for the great review!

[diane]

I really enjoyed this book a lot!

[air jordan 6]

These are times of finer houses,but more broken homes

[Christian Louboutin Slingbacks]

I loved the performances on the Darkness tour for the sheer force and passion of a band both proving and discovering how great there really were. (By the way Brucie, I know you're reading this... Isn't it about time you gave us that Darkness box set we're all waiting

[ugg boots]

Restaurants should realise that if they want customers to carry on dining out then they need to lower their prices. It's not rocket science.