"There are Consequences for our Actions" | Testimony: A Novel

WOW !!! | Testimony: A Novel | Anita Shreve

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	• Testimony: A Novel Anita Shreve Little, Brown and Company, 2008 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 30 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

As stimulating as it is sad

There's a reason we love police procedurals and courtroom dramas: they invite readers to plunge in, giving us a chance to look at the evidence, hear the witnesses and guess at what it all means. As the pieces accumulate, little by little a picture of the truth --- or of a truth --- emerges. For nail-biting tension, there's nothing to beat this sort of slow, tantalizing buildup.

Although TESTIMONY isn't exactly a mystery, its author, Anita Shreve --- a novelist so prolific that her consistency verges on the miraculous --- is a master of suspense. Her work is consistently fresh, intelligent and gripping, and she never fails to be in control of her material, which in this instance concerns a sexual assault case at the fictional Avery Academy, an upper-crust prep school in Vermont. One night after a dance, three boys, star basketball players, have sex with a 14-year-old girl. All four kids are very drunk. And there is a videotape.

TESTIMONY consists of just that: not transcripts from a court of law, but witness statements that dig into every nook and cranny of the crime (if it was a crime). Each chapter is from a different person's perspective, ranging from Mike, the school's headmaster, to the perpetrators themselves, the girl in question (it's uncertain whether she is seductress or victim, or both) and the beleaguered parents. Some pieces of evidence are in the form of letters, others are personal reminiscences; several are from interviews conducted a few years later by an academic researcher investigating "alcohol and the adolescent male." Together, jigsaw-puzzle-like, these voices tell us the story and its tragic denouement.

Although there are also accounts from more peripheral characters --- policemen, roommates, teammates, a worker in the Avery dining hall --- the students' relationships with their parents, as well as with quasi-parental figures like teachers or headmasters, are the most central. I think that any parent reading it (most likely a mother) will identify powerfully with the surprise and shock of these adults as they confront the sex, drugs and lies of their children's double lives.

Two of the three boys, you see, have always seemed like exemplary young men --- high morals, fine minds, all that --- so their behavior is completely out of character. They ruin themselves with one... what? Fit of anger and rebellion? Alcoholic frenzy? Stupid mistake? It's to Shreve's credit that she doesn't sew her ending into a neatly stitched explanation or indictment. Instead, efforts to contain the scandal vie with attempts to expose it, and clarity is lost in a swirl of rage, confusion and grief. Ambiguity is what TESTIMONY is all about.

Of the families, the one belonging to Silas, a local scholarship boy, is the most interesting. His father is a farmer, plain-spoken and radiating grim integrity (he never trusted Avery in the first place); his mother yearns for something more meaningful for herself and her son; and the boy himself is a thoughtful kid, ethical almost to a fault. In love with Noelle, a beautiful cellist, he is racked with self-loathing about what the incident will mean to their future, fearful that she will forgive him but never forget.

Some of the other characters are more clichéd --- the girl, Sienna, is portrayed as a sleazy little opportunist who lacks sensitivity or intelligence. But maybe Shreve is reminding us that it isn't just virtuous, reserved girls like Noelle who need protection.

And it isn't just jaded, amoral boys who take sexual advantage. In fact, there is nothing in the novel to suggest, reassuringly, that if teachers and parents paid attention and kids were raised properly, incidents like this would never happen. In that sense, Shreve's book ends rather bleakly, for how can institutions protect the innocent and nail the guilty when the line between the two is so murky?

But TESTIMONY is as stimulating as it is sad. A fascinating exercise in storytelling from multiple points of view --- with no editorializing from a third-person narrator --- it makes witnesses of its readers and challenges us to make up our own minds about what is true or false, good or bad. A vigorous and provocative book.

--- Reviewed by Kathy Weissman

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"There are Consequences for our Actions"

Once again, Anita Shreve delivers. Her latest book is about a small private school in Vermont. It is also about the people (students,parents,teachers,headmaster) and all the others of this small community.

The incident that gets the ball rolling starts with a tape dropped off to the headmaster of the school. The tape is of three boys (18 and 19 Yrs. old) and one 14 year old girl engaging in sex in what seems to be a very drunken state, in the boys dorm room.

The story is told by all the participants and their families. Each chapter is narrated by one of these people. It is at this point, as you get much further into the book that you learn there is much more to this very sad and disturbing story. When one bad decision is made and discovered the dominos begin to fall and the consequences of this are horrific and unfortunate.

There is also a very good chapter at the end of the book that puts the whole incident into a different light. To say more would spoil the whole thing. If you have enjoyed Anita Shreve in the past, don't miss this one, it is fantastic!!!!

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WOW !!!

Shreve is back in form. I was disappointed in some of her recent books, but this one showed that the Shreve I loved is back.

The topic, sexual assault of a teenage girl by fellow students at a Vermont boarding school, was handled in an unusual and effective way in Shreve's experienced hands.

She used many voices (school staff, teenagers, parents), different person (first, second and third), and two tenses (past and present) to tell the story --- an interesting treatment. It was left to the reader to try to make a decision as to where blame should lie....or if there were many people to blame....or if the truth really lies somewhere in between what is being told. The voices, often flawed and unreliable, were nonetheless rendered impeccably.

Shreve's storytellers relate the factors involved in what happened and also the horrendous aftermath. Although the theme (that one action can have unbelievable repercussions) is not original, in this author's hands it seems to be new. This is a complex story that I am sure I will be thinking about and pondering for a long time.

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Something Very Different, But Moving, from Shreve

I'm a big fan of Anita Shreve, and I've read all of her books. When I saw her newest novel, Testimony, in stores I picked it up immediately. What I discovered was that Testimony is a story different from Shreve's other novels. Most of her novels deal with a woman who falls in love in some life altering way--but Testimony is definitely different.

Testimony still deals with a life changing event--but instead of love its a sex scandal at a tony private school. The book uses short passages from about a dozen characters connected to the scandal in different ways to reveal how it happened and its repercussions. Even though the scandal seems pretty straightforward from the start, there are some twists that happen through the course of the narrative that make the story much deeper than a ripped-from-the-headlines teen sex scandal story. In Shreve's usual style, Testimony keeps you turning the pages--I didn't want to put this book down.

I will warn readers that there are some graphic scenes in this novel--it does deal with a sex scandal. If this review system allowed half stars, I would give the novel 3 and a half stars--I enjoyed the book overall, but I was a little disappointed since I had enjoyed Shreve's earlier novels so much and was hoping for more of the same. But overall I think this book is worth reading--its a good story about the consequences of seemingly harmless actions.

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Solid

"Testimony" by Anita Shreve is a story with several shimmering facets cut into one brilliant gem. Written with powerful emotional prose, she strikes chords by reaching deep within her characters and exposing their dark side.

One element I enjoy in a story is an unexpected and sudden death, especially of a seemingly innocent character. In the interest of not spoiling it, I'll spare the name. When this character died, I was somewhat but not fully expecting it. You were on the cusp of a great event and WHAM! Dead.

The ending was a chapter of extended length, but hard not to dive into. It was a letter written by a man involved in the sex scandal and grabbed you by the brain.

When reading the words of a young person, I was sold on the fact that they were the thoughts of a teenager. I was swept away by this story.

This story recounts events that could happen at anytime, anywhere in our country, and surely does. Shreve brings not only the events into view, but the after-effects. Something like a sex scandal is far-reaching and affects the lives of victims, participants, families and in this case, teachers.

A solid effort from a gifted storyteller.

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At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora's box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voices--those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal--that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment.

Writing with a pace and intensity surpassing even her own greatest work, Anita Shreve delivers in TESTIMONY a gripping emotional drama with the impact of a thriller. No one more compellinglyexplores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, the needs and fears that drive ordinary men and women into intolerable dilemmas, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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