Testimony: A Novel [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Anita Shreve (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 2009

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.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Anita Shreve is the critically acclaimed author of fourteen novels, including Body Surfing, The Pilot's Wife, which was a selection of Oprah's Book Club, and The Weight of Water, which was a finalist for England's Orange Prize. She lives in Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 305 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (May 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316067342
• ASIN: B003P2VBIU
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #698,524 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anita Shreve grew up in Dedham, Massachusetts (just outside Boston), the eldest of three daughters. Early literary influences include having read Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton when she was a junior in high school (a short novel she still claims as one of her favorites) and everything Eugene O'Neill ever wrote while she was a senior (to which she attributes a somewhat dark streak in her own work). After graduating from Tufts University, she taught high school for a number of years in and around Boston. In the middle of her last year, she quit (something that, as a parent, she finds appalling now) to start writing. "I had this panicky sensation that it was now or never."

Joking that she could wallpaper her bathroom with rejections from magazines for her short stories ("I really could have," she says), she published her early work in literary journals. One of these stories, "Past the Island, Drifting," won an O. Henry prize. Despite this accolade, she quickly learned that one couldn't make a living writing short fiction. Switching to journalism, Shreve traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, where she lived for three years, working as a journalist for an African magazine. One of her novels, The Last Time They Met, contains bits and pieces from her time in Africa.

Returning to the United States, Shreve was a writer and editor for a number of magazines in New York. Later, when she began her family, she turned to freelancing, publishing in the New York Times Magazine, New York magazine and dozens of others. In 1989, she published her first novel, Eden Close. Since then she has written 14 other novels, among them The Weight of Water, The Pilot's Wife, The Last Time They Met, A Wedding in December, Body Surfing, Testimony,and A Change in Altitude.

In 1998, Shreve received the PEN/L. L. Winship Award and the New England Book Award for fiction. In 1999, she received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey, and The Pilot's Wife became the 25th selection of Oprah's Book Club and an international bestseller. In April 2002, CBS aired the film version of The Pilot's Wife, starring Christine Lahti, and in fall 2002, The Weight of Water, starring Elizabeth Hurley and Sean Penn, was released in movie theaters.

Still in love with the novel form, Shreve writes only in that genre. "The best analogy I can give to describe writing for me is daydreaming," she says. "A certain amount of craft is brought to bear, but the experience feels very dreamlike."

Shreve is married to a man she met when she was 13. She has two children and three stepchildren, and in the last eight years has made tuition payments to seven colleges and universities.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars thought-provoking, May 15, 2009

By 

Victoria J. Livingston "chocomom" (Columbus, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Testimony: A Novel (Paperback)

I'm a diehard fan of Anita Shreeve, and this book kept my rapt attention and I consider it one of her finest.
It's about a sex scandal at a private high school in New England and shows how one event can seriously alter the path of one's life--in fact, this event devastated many lives. One learns of a videotape early on in the book, but the sex scenes are tastefully depicted.
What I found interesting is that at least one of the boys involved is a very sympathetic character and the girl, who one might assume to be the victim, is depicted as manipulative and callous. I certainly could feel for the mother whose son committed suicide (we know this up front--in the beginning we know this even will ruin many lives, we're just not sure who and how).
As a writer, I found it curious that she mixes up point of view--first, third and even second, which is usually a no-no in writing; and she mixes up past and present tense. I was looking for a review to see what others thought about that. I assume she did it experimentally, and because she is a famous writer, she did it because she could. I found it to be a little disconcerting--the change of point of view and tense--but it did not detract from the story itself, which was quite riveting.
What I really like about her writing is that it's not just escape fiction. There is a message about how one event can serious change one's life--in this case, quite devastatingly. In a way, the book is about the negative consequences of sex--how teenage boys can be easily seduced and in another case, how an affair can damage lives, but it's not moralistic. I think it is very true that one event, one bad decision, can have a serious impact on people's lives.
I would definitely recommend the book. The characterization is rich. There are a variety of personalities and she's quite adept at getting inside the skin of each and every one.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great writing, average plot, June 6, 2009

By 

IK (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Testimony: A Novel (Paperback)

I would give the book 4 stars for its main idea, 5 for writing style and 2 for plot and logic.
LIKED:
-The voices are believable despite the large number of viewpoints.
-The writing is evocative but free of overblown metaphors and pretentiousness.
DISLIKED:
-After a strong opening, the action stalls for at least 100 pages while the author introduces the full cast and describes the lead-up to the incident.
-There are hardly any twists in the events that follow the incident (except for a death, which can still be predicted at least 30 pages before it happens). Although the resulting destruction is masterfully conveyed, the extent of the devastation and the characters' reactions are somewhat predictable too. No character stands out, or does anything that really surprises or awes the reader.
OTHER THOUGHTS:
(Potential spoilers)
-The main point of the novel - that a moment in life can have catastrophic consequences - is served to the reader at the very beginning. That point is repeated a number of times throughout the book but no additional insight is offered in the end.
-The question of the person behind the camera is not satisfactorily resolved, although the author lets expectations build from the very beginning, frustrating the reader in the process. This is also unfortunate because there is a lot of potential there - the person behind the camera could turn out to be Rasheed (at least we have met him before) or someone unexpected, a girl perhaps... The question of who edited and posted the video is just as important, and similarly given only minimal attention.
-We are reminded of the UVM researcher's existence in almost every chapter; her faceless presence feels creepy at times. The novel might have benefited from "showing" that person at the end - by either giving her her own chapter, or telling us what became of her research project. What were her conclusions anyway?
-It is not credible that the administration of an institution such as Avery would not have a process or internal policies which require resort to legal counsel. In addition, the headmaster's intentions and logic in extracting the confessions are unconvincing.
-At times, the book feels like a drawn-out Law & Order: SVU episode. However, unlike the show, the novel does not show or discuss at any length what would have been the right thing to do for any of the participants, and does not have a character who could serve as a moral compass.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Youth At Risk, August 31, 2009

By 

Andrew Malekoff (Long Beach, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Testimony: A Novel (Paperback)

Testimony's primary setting is a prep school in New England. The focus is on the build up to and aftermath of an alcohol-fueled incident enacted by a group of teenagers ranging in age from 14 to 19. The kicker is that the incident is captured on film. Although a work of fiction, the events in Testimony are believable. There is a that-could-happen-any-time-and-anywhere-to-anyone quality. Shreve shows how the trajectories of many lives and relationships can be altered permanently as the result of a single unfortunate event in which none of the parties considered the consequences of their decisions and actions. The incident itself, however, is not the whole story. There are several carefully crafted back stories that Shreve presents in different and distinct voices that set a chain of events into motion for which there is no turning back. I highly recommend this engaging, multi-layered and moving novel.