Hour I First Believed

<p><strong><em>New York Times</em> Bestseller</strong></p><p><strong>The beauty of <em>The Hour I First Believed</em> a soaring novel as amazingly graceful as the classic hymn that provides the title is that Lamb never loses sight of the spark of human resilience. . . . Lamb's wonderful novel offers us the promise and power of hope.--<em>Miami Herald</em></strong></p><p><strong>The profound and compelling story of a personal quest for meaning and faith from Wally Lamb #1 <em>New York Times </em>bestselling author of <em>She's Come Undone</em> and<em> I Know This Much Is True</em></strong></p><p>When 47-year-old high school teacher Caelum Quirk and his younger wife Maureen a school nurse move to Littleton Colorado they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999 Caelum returns home to 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 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 back east. But the effects of chaos are not so easily put right and further tragedy ensues. </p><p>In <em>The Hour I First Believed</em> Wally Lamb travels well beyond his earlier work and embodies in his fiction myth psychology family history stretching back many generations and the questions of faith that lie at the heart of everyday life. The result is an extraordinary tour de force at once a meditation on the human condition and an unflinching yet compassionate evocation of character. </p><br/><p> </p>