Testimony

August 11, 2008
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.

Starred review from August 15, 2008
Recounting a student sex scandal at a prestigious Vermont private academy, this explosive novel from Shreve ("Body Surfing") is more transfixing than a multicar pileup on the interstate. Told from the perspectives of the students involved, the school administrator, the parents, and numerous bystanders, the story keeps unraveling as it slingshots back and forth in time. At each revelation, readers keep hoping that things will turn out differently, that there will be survivors, despite the carnage before their eyes. Yet that one night can never be undone: "A single action can cause a life to veer off in a direction it was never meant to go." Shreve arrows in on many targetsunderage drinking, instant exposure via the Internet, familial expectations, youthful insecurities, and peer pressure, among themas she flawlessly weaves a tale that is mesmerizing, hypnotic, and compulsive. No one walks away unscathed, and that includes the reader. Highly recommended. [Prepub Alert, "LJ" 6/15/08.]Bette-Lee Fox, "Library Journal"

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2008
Shreve, consummate crafstman and frequent provocateur, ison fire in her latest novel, a mesmerizing read centering on a sex scandal at a prestigious Vermontprep school.The story is laid out in short, dramatic chapters narrated by a chorus of participants and bystanders, from the beleagured headmaster to theheartbroken parents tothe vacuous girl at the center of the scandal. Three star basketball players were videotaped having sex with a freshman, and the tape was then postedon the Internet. Thereaction is immediate and the results devastating, destroying marriages, ruining futures, and, most horrifying of all, resulting in a death. Part of what makes the novel so riveting is itsgraphic rehashing of a scandal familiar from newspaper headlines, but most of this affecting novels appeal lies in the way it so carefully fills in the nuances often missing from the headlines. One of the boys, the son of local farmers who was attending the elite school on scholarship, had learned a shocking secret about his mother just prior to the incident and, uncharacteristically, hadtoo much to drink. Conversely, the girlultimately calls the cops, thereby alerting the media, and accuses the boys of rape because its easier than having to face the wrath of her father.Shreveviews all of the characters, even the most flawed, with a good deal of compassion, revealingthe heartbreaking consequences of a single reckless act.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)

Starred review from December 22, 2008
The large cast does justice to Shreve’s engrossing novel. For once, the high school students—including Brian Kennedy as Silas, Eve Bianco as Noelle, Joshua Swanson as Rob, and Jill Apple as Sienna—sound genuinely young. Ellen Archer teases out all the meaning and emotion she can from the relatively small part of Anna, Silas’s mother. Robert Petkoff is less persuasive as Mike, the headmaster of the school, Anna’s eventual lover, and a pivotal figure in the dramatic events that unfold at Avery Academy. He sounds dispassionate and factual, but Shreve makes it clear that Mike is egotistical and rash. Photos and credits of all the cast members on the last disk are a welcome bonus as most of the performers deserve attention after their riveting narratives and fine ensemble work. A Little, Brown hardcover (Reviews, Aug. 11).