Testimony: A Novel

Anita Shreve
Little, Brown & Company (2008)
ISBN 9780316059862
Reviewed by Danielle Feliciano for Reader Views (12/08)

 

Anita Shreve’s newest novel, “Testimony,” is the explosive tale of Avery Academy and the aftermath of one night of poor choices.  Avery is an elite boarding school in New England, full of privileged students.  These students may be the smartest and the most elite, but they are still kids.  Money cannot protect them from drugs and alcohol, and it certainly can’t protect them from themselves.  One night of alcohol-driven choices tears apart the school, the students and the entire town.

Headmaster Mike Bordwin is handed a tape found in one of the dorms.  He views it to find it is a sex tape of Avery students in an Avery dorm, and one of those students is a 14-year-old girl.  There are three boys in the tape and an unidentified person holding the camera.  Mike is stunned but goes right into “headmaster” mode and does what he thinks is the best thing for the school.  He tries to keep the problem internal and thus sends a message that Avery is above the law.  That plan doesn’t last long and soon enough, lives are destroyed by this tape.  Marriages split, students lose their education and one person dies. 

The book is told in snippets by a number of narrators.  While having multiple narrators could be confusing, Ms. Shreve does a tremendous job of making the transition of voices nearly seamless.  As each person tells his or her experience, more and more is revealed, eventually giving the reader the whole picture.  

There are some basic flaws in the story that put a negative cloud over my reading of it.  It seems that despite the tragedy and its aftermath, not one person learned a lesson from what happened. Regardless of how subtle, there was also too much “blame the victim” on the part of the headmaster and the boys and not enough addressing the real issue, which was a bunch of teenagers who each made horrible choices while drunk.  On the other hand, to go so far as to say this girl was sexually assaulted is in my opinion an insult to survivors of rape and sexual assault.  Yes, she was underage, but it was clear she made up the “I was raped” line as a way to gain her parents’ sympathy and avoid their anger when she found out it was taped.  This made me dislike the one person who was supposed to be a victim.  At times I felt more sympathy for Silas than I did for the girl.  No matter what your opinion of the characters and the events, “Testimony” by Anita Shreve is one of the most thought-provoking books I have read in a while.

Make comment on weblog