Testimony by Anita Shreve Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Testimony
Book Review: Another great novel from Anita Shreve!
Summary: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Kam Aures for RebeccasReads (12/08)
"Testimony" begins from the perspective of the headmaster of Avery Academy, Mike. He has come into possession of a sex tape, a tape in which all four individuals involved are students at the academy. The contents of the tape are very graphic and extremely disturbing. "It was a small cassette, not much bigger than the palm of his hand, and when Mike thought about the terrible license and risk exhibited on the tape, as well as its resultant destructive power, it was as though the two-by-three plastic package had been radioactive. Which it may as well have been, since it produced something very like radiation sickness throughout the school, reducing the value of an Avery education, destroying at least two marriages that he knew of, ruining the futures of three students, and, most horrifying of all, resulting in a death." (p.3)
The book continues to explore the implications that one act can have on the future, each chapter told from a different character's point of view. The constant changing between characters every few pages is a little confusing at times, especially in the beginning when you do not know who any of them are. However, as the book goes on and you become more familiar with the players, it becomes much easier to follow.
It is very interesting to see the different perspectives of the life-altering event and the impact that it has on everyone involved. Throughout the book we get snippets here and there of what actually happened and by the end of the novel we have the entire story. The main premise is definitely something that every mother dreads, and unfortunately it is becoming all too common in today's world. It is this very reason that the book is so interesting. It is something you don't want to see, but once you do see it is hard to look away. It takes the events of one night, shows the ripple effects that occur, and the resulting unfortunate consequences.
Anita Shreve has created another wonderful novel! The characters and plot are very interesting and intriguing, making "Testimony" a book that once you begin reading you will not want to put it down.
Book Review: Another riveting story
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a big fan of Anita Shreve and have read all her works. This book really grabs your attention from the start - a relevant story of consequences of one mistake that snowballed into tragedy. It could happen to anyone, anywhere. Extremely entertaining and it touched my heart too. I gave it to my grown daughters to read simply because it makes you stop and think before you indulge yourself in guilty pleasures that could really come back to haunt in a big way. Not preachy, but thought-provoking and entertaining all at the same time. A 5 star read for sure! KathyBook Review: As stimulating as it is sad
Summary: 5 Stars
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
Book Review: BUT THE "IT" WAS INSIDE OF US
Summary: 4 Stars
TESTIMONY
A true sex scandal has broken at the Avery Academy, a renowned school in New England. A tape has surfaced, a tape showing three upper classmen having sexual relations with a younger 14 year old female student. How this tape and one night of reckless abandon affects the lives of not only the students involved but also their friends, family, faculty, and other students at the school is the jest of this well written book.
Anita Shreve can write, she has proven that to me over and over again. This book reads in many layers. The entire 'testimony' is told by numerous voices and the story is peeled open rather like an onion. Each character tells their part of the tale; everyone of them has a distinct and unique voice. As they each tell their account of what happened at Avery the reader is hurled faster and faster towards the truth of the matter. The suspense unfolds and keeps you holding your breath wondering how things will turn out for all involved.
Was this tape a recording of a sexual assault? Was the young 14 year old girl raped by these three boys? Was the girl the instigator of the entire horrible situation? Why and how were these four people taped and by whom? Read this remarkable book and find out!
The consequences of this night and its effects on many people are examined. There are so many lives ruined due to this one startling and shocking event. There are many unanswered questions and so many 'what-if' situations. The book is down to earth, suspenseful, and full of the human touch.
I enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. Some of the explicit details may offend some readers but the sensitive scenes are well written.
Thank you.
Pam
Book Review: Brava, bravissima, Anita!
Summary: 5 Stars
From a single circumscribed incident - a teenaged sexual orgy, caught on videotape - Shreve reveals, bit by bit, how it all happened and how it affected the lives of those involved, both directly and indirectly. She does this in an ingenious way - through the unique voices of these people, who speak to you as though they were sitting across the room from you.
This is a story of loss and profound sorrow. Indeed, it is Shakespearean in the scope of tragedy wreaked upon the characters - the innocent as well as the culpable, the well-meaning as well as the basely-intentioned. Shreve's masterful rendition of the characters is breathtaking; they live and speak in their own unique voices as they try to explain the incident from their point of view. You will see their faces clearly, will sympathize and try to understand their motivations. This is an amazing novel; a literary work that is compulsively readable.