Customer Reviews

The Sweet Hereafter [Paperback] by Russell Banks

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I know this space is usually reserved strictly for a review of the book, but since Amazon's review of "The Sweet Hereafter" makes many references to the clear superiority of the novel over the film, I feel obliged to briefly respond. And to passionately disagree.

The movie is not merely good; it is an outright masterpiece.

Banks' novel is strong and insightful on so many different levels, and I would have thought, by the very nature of its structure, that it would have been virtually impossible to bring to the screen. But Atom Egoyan has been able to write and film one of the most intensely intelligent screen adaptations I have ever seen. And Amazon's review about it completely misses the bus.

Banks brings to life his remote and icy small town clearly and realistically, and there is not a false note in his portrait of his characters or the isolated world they inhabit. Although we hear four different narrators throughout the story, the book always seems to be viewing its devastated people in Sam Dent from high above, as if they are under a microscope in their struggles to survive the worst that life offers.

Whereas Banks uses literary skills to reflect on his larger themes, Egoyan uses the breathtaking skill of his filmmaking to come up with a comparable work. "The Sweet Hereafter" is one of the great films of the '90s; like the book, it is not about death but about surviving the incomprehensible death of those closest to you.

Egoyan manipulates time in his film -- not as a gimmick but for similar purposes that Banks chooses various narrators to see some of the same events from different perspectives. Both works avoid using the bus crash as a literary or cinematic climax in any way; their profundity is in the examination of coping with loss, not about the loss itself.

Egoyan, of course, isn't able to give all of the background that Banks so beautifully captures about his characters. But his choices of what to include and how to include them are impeccable. The lawyer's "future" airplane trip where he meets Zoe's old friend is a perfectly believable and moving way to include the story of Zoe nearly dying as a child. In some ways, it serves as the muted centerpiece of the film.

Egoyan's choice of having Nichole read the poetic fairytale to the children she babysits is another brilliant inclusion not in the book; it adds unforgettable resonance to the work.

The books' last sequence works quite well, as Amazon notes, but Amazon's critique of the film's ending is simply way off base. The last image -- Nichole reading to the children the night before the crash and then walking toward the window where a light from the "sweet hereafter" reaches out to her -- shakes one to the core.

It's fashionable to criticize a film in comparison to a book, especially one as good as Banks' novel. But there is no need. Banks has created a terrific read that stays with you after the final page. But Egoyan has created a masterpiece in his own right, bringing Banks' novel to the screen as well as anyone could.

It is so completely rare to read a book so good made into a movie so good. I simply wish Amazon had recognized Egoyan's remarkable accomplishment as they did Banks' great read.

The Sweet Hereafter is a compelling novel of a small town in America that has to overcome a devasating tragedy.

The novel is written from the perspective of four completely different narrators which is what makes the story so interesting. The way Russel Banks portrays each character can make even the most insensitive reader identify with them. The language he uses can make you almost hear the character speaking and makes them seem more realistic. A reader from any cultural background can read this book and get the feeling of a small town in America and sympathize with the characters in it. The novel is written so well that every point of view can be clearly seen even when the characters are expressing some of their negative attributes.

The way the people deal with the accident is what is so compelling because their lives can be altered in a positive or very negative way depending on how they deal with the influx of big city lawyers and media.This novel gives you an in depth look at how ordinary people deal with pain and loss. We see how certain relationships deteriorate and others develop after the tragedy. The way they see each other and the way the reader sees the characters will change drastically from beginning to end.

There are themes in this novel for everyone from secret affairs, loss of loved ones, alcoholism, selfishness, divorce and the need to blame others are just a few. Anyone can get involved in this book and will most probably see some aspects of their own lives in it.

The outcome of the novel was pleasantly surprising but it is inevitable to have a slight feeling of sadness for some of the characters. It is very realistic but not at all dull, everyone has to read this book!

I was perusing the reviews of this book earlier, and I have to agree that this book is one of Russell Banks' most haunting, despondent, and beautiful pieces of prose. The Sweet Hereafter chronicles the story of four individuals who are struggling with the aftermath of a horrific school bus accident, resulting in the deaths of many schoolchildren riding that morning. The book uses four different narrators; there is Delores, the once tough but eternally optimistic driver who now is consumed by guilt. Another voice is Billy Ansel, the ruggedly handsome widower who witnesses the accident from his truck. With the death of his twin son and daughter, Ansel becomes grief-stricken and shuts out any possibility of redemption, offerd in the form of a personal injury lawyer, who placed blame on the town and offers promise of financial reparitions. The lawyer is Mitchell Stephens, who also is reeling from the "death" of a child; his daughter has disappeared into a lifestyle of drugs and detox centers. The fourth and perhaps most intriguing voice is Nicole Burnell, a former cheerleader now paralyzed by the accident. She is a crucial witness for Stephens, and her surprising actions reveal ambiguous motives. I can't really reveal too much more about her, but she is the most interesting character in the book, in part because it is never clear why she does what she does. The book also has a heatwrenching epilogue, demonstating that, in a story like this, there can be no neat sense of closure. Rather, the devastation of survival plagues and haunts each member of the community, and time does not heal suffering, but rather prolongs it.
Another reviewwer commented that the book was light on dialogue. Indeed, it is. However, I think it is necessary to omit large chunks of conversation, because so much of the book centers on the internal process of grief and the ianbility of hte characters to express their emotions effectively to others. Everything just shuts down, becomes static, and indeed, suspends people in a "sweet hereafter." This is an incredible book by one of the greatest contemporary authors in the United States. The film adaptaion is also stellar, with fantastic work by Ian Holm and a parade of talented Canadian actors.

How does Russell Banks do it? His book THE SWEET HEREAFTER blew my mind. After reading RULE OF THE BONE I was immersed in his style. The Sweet Hereafter is a book about a school bus accident that flips a small tight-knit community in upstate New York, upside down. The tragic event affects the entire town. The story is told from the perspective of four very differnt people. One of them is an over the hill bus driver, the next is a Vietnam vet/towns most liked person in his 30's, the third is a hotshot NYC lawyer and the last is a crippled fourteen year old who used to be the town princess. The book is honest and gritty. It really lets you into the town of Sam Dent. You become a different eye in the commmunity at the turn of every chapter.The characters are realistic and are vividlt portrayed. You get a clear vision of the town, the people in it, and the on-goings. It is simple yet gripping, quiet yet screaming.It posseses you.

It's hard to write a review for the novel and the novel alone, for if you've seen the brilliant film adaptation they really mold into one amazing experience. Both the novel and the film add so many layers and compliment one another so well that I'm almost forced to advise everyone who has read the novel to see the movie and visa-versa. It's only in that way that you'll get the whole experience. That's not to say that either is incomplete but that each one is so well-rounded, so well fleshed out and so in tune that it's almost a continuation rather than an adaptation. That said I'll try and focus mainly on Russell Banks novel here but don't get upset it I reference Atom Egoyan's film adaptation more than once.

First I want to point out that Russell Banks is a masterful writer. This is the first novel of his that I have read and I'm so impressed that I've already ordered `Affliction'. His style is so calm and relaxed; it perfectly fit the atmosphere of the story. Some have mentioned this being boring or slow paced. It's far from boring in my humble opinion, but the slow pacing is essential to the feel of the novel. It helps you to get inside the aftermath of the tragedy by fully understanding the mindset of the town. If you've seen the film you'll understand better, for Egoyan also was able to brilliantly capture that pure unsettling serenity that Banks exposes on each and every page.

It was a very easy read, not something you long to put down. My only fault with the writing was more the arrangement. There are only five chapters, each with a different protagonist (except the first and last, each being the same) and each chapter is quite lengthy of course with no breaks in text to render a good stopping point. So, with that said it became difficult to find enough time to devote to finishing a chapter. I know that not everyone will have this problem, but for someone who can't seem to set aside more than ten minutes or so to get in some reading it can prove difficult. Don't let this detour you from divulging this brilliant novel. That would be a grave mistake.

The story focuses around the small town of Sam Dent after a tragic bus accident leaves 14 children dead, the bus driver, Dolores Driscoll, and a 14 year old student Nichole being two of the only survivors. The novel shifts between four key characters, Dolores, Nichole, Mitchell (a lawyer) and Billy Ansel, a widower who lost his two children in the wreck. The story follows Mitchell as he tries to persuade the town's people to file a negligence suit against the town of Sam Dent. There are conflicting opinions in regard to the suit, to the money and to the accident as a whole and those opinions are fleshed out so well before us. Each of these four human beings has so much history, so much baggage, yet Banks' superb novel never gets bogged down. That is due in large part to his calm and steady style.

To me the novel excels in really exposing Mitchell Stephens, the lawyer, for the man he really is. He's troubled by the wayward course his only daughter Zoe has taken and this affects his almost every move. It's almost as if he's fighting for her with every breath, every case, as if she was his only motive. I feel that film adaptation excels in really exposing Nichole's character. That's not to say that Banks doesn't breathe life into the soul he created, but Egoyan's film effortlessly makes her the star, giving her so much substance and character and really fleshing her out in all due subtlety to make her relatable and heartbreaking, the moral center of a tragic accident. The book brilliantly relates Dolores Driscoll's account of the accident as well as the post-accident life in the small town, her treatment by the town's people before and after.

Somewhere where the novel and the film seem to tie or at least both deliver valiantly is in the case of Billy Ansel, the Vietnam-War Vet widower who loved his kids more than anything, the man who was trailing behind the bus waving to his children when he lost his whole world with the sight of a crash. His story is heartbreaking. The book though really delivers with its final chapter, something that is not delved into with the film, and it adds a few more layers to both Ansel and Driscoll. So, this is why I can't help but recommend both in the same breath. They both add so much and deliver so well that you truly must read and then watch or watch and then read to grasp the magic in its entirety.

This is the story of a town that lost many of its children in a schoolbus accident. I read this book a long time ago after suffering a great loss of my own, but rather than making me sadder strangely it made me feel better. Banks communicates the terrible loneliness and isolation that surrounds and overwhelms the parents, the surviving victim, and even an attorney who is planning to sue for damages (who has himself lost a daughter to drugs).

Banks' chacters have feelings that are genuine and human rather than stereotypically "bad" or "good." Because the characters are flawed and struggling with those faults, it avoids sentimentality. I identified with many of them.

If you have avoided this book because of its tragic story, I urge you, "Don't". I can think of no other author who can convey the emotions of ordinary people as well as Banks.

I would not have believed it, but it made me feel better.

Russell Banks' precisely-crafted novel takes an interesting technique -- 4 different views of the same tragedy by 4 different narrators -- and uses it to show that the same chain of events can yield as many different realities as there are observers.

The tragedy in this case -- a schoolbus full of children skids on an icy road and plunges into a frozen, water-filled, abandoned quarry, killing and crippling many of a small town's progeny -- is seen, alternately, as an accident or negligence, an opportunity for justice or revenge, as an excuse for heroics or submitting to despair, by various characters in this drama set in rural New York state, near the Canadian border.

Into the fray wades New York City personal injury lawyer Mitchell Stevens -- who has problems of his own. He tries (sometimes in vain) to show the grieving mourners and survivors how they can come together to mete out a ringing punishment against 'those responsible'. It's an uphill battle, and Stevens, an outsider, is met with predictable suspicion by many of the locals. His efforts to convince them of the merits of the case and their view of events don't necessarily coincide, to say the least -- and his attempts to deal with his own personal demons take a toll on his life as well.

Through his adept use of multiple narrators -- which in the hands of a writer of lesser ability would be cumbersome -- Banks allows the reader to learn many things about these characters, and watch as they learn things about themselves as well. The success or failure of the case comes down to the testimony of one person, high-school beauty queen Nicole Burnell, left in a wheelchair by the accident, who, as it turns out, has an unforseen card up her sleeve -- and in playing it, shows us all too clearly that even justice has more than one face.

Banks is one of America's most skillful contemporary writers -- he has several acclaimed novels to his credit, and a hefty volume of some of the finest short fiction anywhere, THE ANGEL ON THE ROOF, to show for his efforts as well. His stories and characters have a way of intertwining and reappearing -- the wrecked schoolbus from this novel pops up again in his RULE OF THE BONE. He is becoming increasingly recognized for his work, and justly so. THE SWEET HEREAFTER is a poignant look at how everyday people react to and grow through a tragedy such as we all hope we never have to endure. None of these characters is 'perfect' -- and that just makes them more real.

This is an entertaining, well-written novel with a nice twist -- and much more satisfying than the film, which wasn't a bad adaptation...but you should definitely read the book first.

Many often do a film a grand injustice by reading its book first. I did the book a grand injustice by watching its film first. In all fairness, however, I did my best to seperate the images the film had already painted into my mind as I read Banks' tragic novel.

This novel deals with the death's of 14 upstate New York school children after their school bus careened down an enbankment on a cold January morning. The town is naturally at a loss and looking to absorb its pain into some sort of retribution. Ultimately though, the town is forced to face its own pain directly at the expense of a few willing sacrificial lambs, and those, people once regarded as pillars of the community.

Banks takes us through the perspective of four individuals: the surviving bus driver, Delores Driscoll; a grieving single father named Billy Ansel; a slick and determined New York lawyer named Mitchell Stephens; and a 14 year-old town darling who survived the accident named Nichole Burnell. Each of their perspectives provide insight into the way a town and its survivors grieve or choose to suspend grief and turn inward on a self-destructive frenzy. A town's children, as Delores Driscoll believes, is what holds a place together, and when they are taken away, the foundations of each life is slowly ripped away, scattering everything that once seemed decent and strong.

A very good read and I especially enjoyed the last chapter which was not included in the film.

In Russell Banks' book "The Sweet Hereafter," he perceptively puts his finger on several basic human truths. He makes the point that every one of us has some deep dark secret, that is life changing, yet it is highly possible that no one knows of it. If someone else does know our dark secret, they are probably just as dedicated, or even more dedicated, than we are to keeping it completely hidden. Every character has some deep dark secret that is never revealed to the town, yet it affects the person's behavior, and even the final outcome of the book. This is illustrated with all four main characters, possibly with the exception of Dolores Driscoll. Another truth he emphasizes is how alone each of us is. Those closest to us really don't know us at all. Each character is alone in their grieving; no one understands what they're going through, though few even bother to try. In addition, he points out the greed of all people. We all have creative kinds of greed that attempt to camouflage it-but deep down it's still there. Some of us are greedy for praise, some are greedy for status, and some are greedy for revenge. Those in the book who were involved in the lawsuit didn't really believe that the state was at fault. They were all simply greedy for some personal gain. The lawyer wanted a vent for his ever-present anger, Nichole wanted revenge on her father, her parents, along with the Driscoll's and a couple of other families, wanted money. Overall, it's a depressing book. Well written, yet not a must read.

I loved this book. I had seen the movie a few years back but decided to try reading the book anyway. It was a good choice. The characters in this book are drawn so well you feel as though you can see them. The author does a great job of making everyone in this book believable and he establishes credible and decent motives for their behaviors that sometimes seem incredible and less than decent.
The book is about the end of innocence. From the loss of the children on the bus, to the loss of a drug addicted child, to the loss of community and finally the loss of one's self in Billy Ansel's case, this books ties it all together. This is my first book by Russell Banks and I'm eager to read the others.