Book Review: *Testimony* by Anita Shreve

Testimony  by Anita Shreve

Back-of-the-book blurb:  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.

She is Too Fond of Books’ review:  Anita Shreve has written a strong novel about privilege and protection.  There are no long passages focusing on the beautiful scenery near this Vermont prep school; it is full of quick prose describing thoughts, actions, and reactions.

Testimony is a powerful book, not only for the subject matter that Shreve deftly handles, but also for the way she structures her novel — turning the page to a new chapter brings a new narrator and a new perspective to the crisis.  The first chapter is written in the third person, and introduces the headmaster of Avery Academy.  The reader is with him as he watches a sexually explicit videotape involving several students at the school  The tape is graphic, neither the headmaster nor the reader can escape its hold. 

Several characters have their viewpoint told by this third-person omniscient narrator.  One uses the second person narrative, which I find to be exceptionally engaging.  In this passage, Shreve describes a mother after she learns of the incident in a phone call from the headmaster:

For a few minutes, you sit on the bench, your keys in your hand, the paralysis having settled in.  You stare at the kitchen cabinets … A series of pictures emerges one by one.  An upturned face, the light glancing off his fat baby cheeks, two teeth visible above a glistening pink lip.  A wet, naked toddler caught up in a football hold, your son fresh from the bath and giggling … Your love for your son feels unbearable.  And then you know why these innocent images have come to you at this moment, for innocence is what is lost now.  Now that you have gotten the phone call.

Shreve creates an “offstage” character, a researcher conducting interviews, to frame several chapters which are related in the first person, conversationally.  Here’s a snippet from a cafeteria worker (I chose an example that won’t give away plot, but shows the past pace of the novel):

I’ve seen the boys down six, seven glasses of milk.  I hardly know a one that eats a vegetable.  I don’t know why we bother with vegetables.  the food is good here.  We have the salad bar, the frozen yogurt machine, the grill … They’ll eat seven, eight tacos at a sitting.  I’ve known these boys since they were freshman.

These various perspectives allow up to see a number of points of view across time.  Shreve peels back the layer of her novel like the thin sections of an onion; this, too, will prick eat your senses and have a taste that lingers.

Was alcohol to blame for the incident, or were the students ultimately responsible for their actions?  Was the girl complicit in the event?  Does the event carry the same weight if she was?  What role do privilege and class play?  Testimony and the issues it raises are highly discussable for book groups; a reader’s guide is available at the publisher’s website.

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