Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #166038 in Books
• Published on: 1992-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Synopsis
Four narrators--bus driver Dolores, upright Bill, shrewd Mitchell, and teenaged Nichole--address agonizing questions as they describe an accident that killed fourteen children and the effects of the tragedy on themselves and their town.

Customer Reviews

Meaning beyond blame
Mitchell Stephens, the admittedly angry New York City negligence lawyer from Banks' "The Sweet Hereafter" runs through a litany of societal problems that have caused a blinding fissure between generations. "We have lost our children," he says, and though he blames drugs and the "sexual colonization of our young people by industry," he is too logical to attempt to focus his anger at vague ideas. Instead, he mounts angry cases against the cities, counties and states from which the children disappear. We see that his true occupation is avoiding the sorrow and guilt he feels because of the "loss" of his own daughter.

When children are lost, parents are left in a sort of amoral timelessness, without history or perspective. The future disappears, and suddenly everything is permitted. The freedom is lonely and terrifying, and parents, in an attempt flee back to the world of rules and consequences, turn their grief outward where it mutates into blame.

But "The Sweet Hereafter" is more than an examination of grief and culpability. The novel investigates the communities that arise when anger and blame are the primary means of social currency. By the end of the book we find ourselves within questions much larger than the individual lives involved, and though we are sad that two characters must be martyred, we are relieved, because we know that martyrs couldn't exist without the morality we thought we'd lost. Even the martyrs find can solace in an understanding their of roles: they are proof of redemption.

Four people drawn together by tragedy
The Sweet Hereafter by russell Banks is a insightful book showing how involvement and personal curcumstances alter the same event in people's lives. This book has four narrators, each telling there own account of the accident, each knowing things the others don't. There is the bus driver, Dolores Driscoll, concerned with the saftey of her "childeren". Then there is Billy Ansel, a widowed vietnam veteran who liked to drive behind the bus and wave at his childeren in the morning. Next we have Mitchell Stephens, a lawyer driven by anger. Lastly there is Nichole Burnell, a beautiful teenager paralyzed in the accident, whose testimony about will change lives for ever. These four different people were drawn together by this tragic accident, there lives forever altered. This book made me realize how the same incident can affect people so differently. The four narrators with their totally different perspectives made this book very interesting and insightful into the lives of others.

A close look at small town tragedy,from eyes of four people.
The Sweet Hereafter is a realistic tale about the small town of Sam Dent through the eyes and minds of four people. Sam Dent is shattered by a tragic school bus accident were many children die or are injured.

Four people are now fatally linked by this tragedy:

We experience the accident first hand through the eyes of the bus driver, Dolores Driscoll. Banks lets us peek into her psyche as she contemplates her part in the accident. She questions herself and is quite willing to accept her fate, yet she lacks the courage to declare her innocence.

Behind the bus at the time of the accident is Billy Ansel, a Marine Vietnam veteran. He not only witnesses the crash but also the deaths of his two children, the only thing he had to live for. We delve into his mind and explore his thoughts and feelings. Billy Ansel has a tragic story of his own: once a war hero, now little more than broken man with a heart of stone. Ansel becomes a mentor for Nichole Burnell, and though he is a tragic hero gone to alcoholism we can not help but admire his morals that help inspire Nichole Burnell to rebel against parasitic lawyer types.

Mitchell Stephens is one of those big city lawyers that plagues Sam Dent in a time of tragedy. Banks allows us to see that he is not just one of those big city lawyers, Mitchell Stephens is a human as well. We experience life through his eyes, and we learn that even a lawyer has his own morals.

Nichole Burnell is the queen of her class. Her destiny to become a rising star is given a violent turn as she is maimed by the accident. The heroine of the story comes to terms with herself and other darker conflicts of her past; and by doing this she is able to save the town from itself.

Russell Banks has allowed us to experience the strife created in a small town. This could of happened to anybody in any town. His characters could of been us or they could of been somebody we know-- that is how realistically he portrays them. The story is so realistic you must remind yourself that you got this book from the FICTION section of the bookstore. And by reading this we realize that there is no such thing as a villain in true life, just people trying to make their way in the world.