READERS MAY WISH TO CONSIDER making charitable donations to the following not-for-profit organizations:
NAMI (NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS)/VETERANS
www.nami.org/veterans
Toll free (800) 950.NAMI
[email protected] “The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has established an online Veterans Resource Center to help support active duty military personnel, veterans and their families facing serious mental illnesses such as depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and schizophrenia.”
• Almost a third of veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq confront mental health problems. Families of soldiers deployed in Afghanistan or Iraq face increasing pressures from repeated and longer tours of duty. Unlike civilian suicide rates, greater numbers of young soldiers are taking their own lives, with broken relationships and marriages considered to be a factor.
• Approximately 40% of homeless veterans have mental illnesses. Approximately 57% of this group are African-American or Hispanic veterans.
MAKE IT RIGHT
P.O. Box 58009
New Orleans, LA 70158-80009
Toll free: (888) MIR-NOLA (647.6652)
Local: (504) 208.9265
www.makeitrightnola.org
“Inspired by the courage and hope of the[Lower 9th Ward] residents he met, Brad Pitt resolved to do whatever he could to help them rebuild. Just as importantly, he wanted to help recreate and nurture the unique culture and spirit of the 9th Ward, which symbolized the soul of New Orleans…The Make It Right mission is clear: to be a catalyst for redevelopment in the Lower 9th Ward by building a neighborhood of safe, healthy homes inspired by Cradle to Cradle thinking and high quality design that celebrates the spirit of the community.”
STUDENTS AGAINST VIOLENCE EVERYWHERE
National Association of SAVE
322 Chapanoke Road, Suite 110
Raleigh, NC 27603
Toll free: (866) 343.SAVE
Local: (919) 661.7800
Fax: (919) 661-7777
www.nationalsave.org
“SAVE is a student-driven organization. Students learn about alternatives to violence and practice what they learn through school and community service projects. As they participate in SAVE activities, students learn crime prevention and conflict management skills and the virtues of good citizenship, civility, and non-violence.”
About the Author
WALLY LAMB’S first two novels, She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, were both number one New York Times bestsellers and selections of Oprah’s Book Club. He edited Couldn’t Keep It to Myself and I’ll Fly Away, two volumes of essays from students in his writing workshop at York Correctional Institution, a women’s prison in Connecticut, where he has been a volunteer facilitator for the past nine years. He lives in Connecticut with his family
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ALSO BY WALLY LAMB
I Know This Much Is True
She’s Come Undone
BY WALLY LAMB AND THE WOMEN OF
YORK CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
Couldn’t Keep It to Myself:
Testimonies from our Imprisoned Sisters
I’ll Fly Away: Further Testimonies from the Women of York Prison
Credits
Jacket photograph © Matthew Antrobus/Getty Images
Jacket design by Archie Ferguson
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE HOUR I FIRST BELIEVED. Copyright © 2008 by Wally Lamb. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Mobipocket Reader October 2008 ISBN 978-0-06-177235-1
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1 A former friend with whom Harris had a falling out
2 No Mercy
3 The Klebold family observed both Jewish and Christian customs.
4 Asked in response to a student’s pleas, “Oh, God. Oh, God.”
5 This student, a friend of Klebold’s, then asked if he was going to be killed. Klebold told him to leave the library immediately, which he did.
6 A video game in which the winner is the player with the highest body count.
7 Jefferson County Sheriff’s officer Tim Walsh, who apprehended Klebold and Harris after the 1998 van break-in.
*After his war service, Reverend Joseph Twichell would become pastor of Hartford, Connecticut’s Asylum Hill Congregational Church and a close friend of his world-famous Nook Farm neighbor, Mark Twain. Twichell also became a lifelong friend and correspondent of Lizzy Popper and lent his support to a number of her social justice causes.
* Most minstrel shows adhered to a standard three-part structure: the act-one “walk around,” the act two “olio,” and the act-three “afterpiece.” In the “walk around,” the entire cast sang and danced, then left the stage to a dozen or so featured players, seated in a semicircle. At center stage sat Mr. Interlocutor, a white master of ceremonies who served as straightman to the “end men” in the corner chairs—white comedians, their faces smeared with burnt cork, their lips exaggerated with contrasting white makeup. Called Tambo and Bones, or Gumbo and Sambo, or Jim Crow and Zip Coon, the end men were comic buffoons who swapped boasts, insults, and malapropisms, reinforcing the belief that “Ethiopes” were dim-witted, lazy, and happy with their lot in life. For the “olio,” the curtain was lowered. At the front of the stage, singers, fiddlers, jugglers, sleight-of-hand artists, and Shakespearean parodists performed a fast-paced variety show while, behind the curtain, stagehands readied the sets for the “afterpiece,” an elaborate production number set on a Southern plantation.
*Popper most likely refers to Louisa May Alcott, who contracted typhoid fever during her nursing service. A hospital physician treated Alcott with calomel, which cured her of the disease but left her with the mercury poisoning that eventually took her life in 1888 at the age of fifty-six. Upon leaving her hospital post, Alcott returned home to Concord, Massachusetts where she wrote a poignant but humorous account of her nursing experiences, published as Hospital Sketches. Her novel, Little Women, followed six years later and made her famous.
Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed
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