2012 Puddly Awards
 
 
Follow us on TwitterFollow us on FacebookFollow us on Google+Follow us on TumblrSubscribe to RSS

Recently Viewed clear list

Guests | May 2, 2012

Julia Alvarez: IMG Chichiguas

0 comments By Julia Alvarez

I wouldn't have met Piti if it hadn't been for a chichigua. To translate chichigua as a kite does not do justice to these beautiful creations of... Continue »
  1. $16.07 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

    A Wedding in Haiti

    Julia Alvarez 9781616201302
spacer
Ships free on qualified orders.
$5.50
Used Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
Qty Store Section
2 Burnside Literature- A to Z

eBook editions

Testimony

by Anita Shreve

Testimony Cover

ISBN13: 9780316059862
ISBN10: 0316059862
Condition: Standard
Dustjacket: Standard
All Product Details

Only 2 left in stock at $5.50!

 

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

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.

Writing with a pace and intensity surpassing even her own greatest work, Anita Shreve delivers in Testimony a gripping emotional drama with the impact of a thriller. No one more compellingly explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, the needs and fears that drive ordinary men and women into intolerable dilemmas, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.

Review:

"Shreve's novels (Body Surfing; The Weight of Water) benefit from propulsive plots, and her mixed latest, with its timely theme of debauchery among children of privilege, does not lack in this regard. The first paragraph foreshadows a tragedy in which three marriages are destroyed, the lives of three students at a private school in Vermont are ruined, and death claims an innocent victim. The precipitating event is a sex tape involving three members of the boys' basketball team and a freshman girl. Beginning with an account of the debacle by the Avery School's then headmaster, and segueing to the voices of the participants in the orgy, plus their parents and others touched by the scandal, the narrative explores the widening consequences of a single event. Shreve's character delineation is astute, and the novel's moral questions — ranging from the boys' behavior to the headmaster's breach of legal ethics to the guilt of those involved in the death — are salient if heavy-handed, while the female characters are 'wicked' in the way women have always been stereotypically portrayed. The novel is clever, but the revolving cast of narrators often feels predictable and forced, keeping the novel on the near side of credible." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

"Shreve arrows in on many targets...as she flawlessly weaves a tale that is mesmerizing, hypnotic, and compulsive. No one walks away unscathed, and that includes the reader. Highly recommended." Library Journal

Review:

"Shreve views all of the characters, even the most flawed, with a good deal of compassion, revealing the heartbreaking consequences of a single reckless act." Booklist

Review:

"[A] compelling tale of teenage scandal and its brutal aftermath in a New England hamlet." Minneapolis Star Tribune

Review:

"A fascinating exercise in storytelling from multiple points of view....A vigorous and provocative book." Bookreporter.com
back to top

Video

About the Author

Anita Shreve is the critically acclaimed author of fourteen novels, including Body Surfing, The Pilot's Wife, which was a selection of Oprah's Book Club, and The Weight of Water, which was a finalist for England's Orange Prize. She lives in Massachusetts.
back to top

What Our Readers Are Saying

Add a comment for a chance to win!
Average customer rating based on 4 comments:
Denise Morland, February 18, 2009 (view all comments by Denise Morland)
Testimony by Anita Shreve tells the story of a group of private school boys who changes their lives irrevocably in one moment of wild abandon. That one moment sweeps up the entire school, their parents, and the surrounding community in its aftermath. The book begins with the fateful moment and then takes you both back to explain the events leading up to the moment and forward to lay out the consequences. As we have come to expect Shreve presents us with clear, clean writing and an interesting plot. There are plenty of moral dilemnas here to ponder and Shreve leaves most of it open to your own interpretation. Did the boys deserve the final outcome? Where did their parents go wrong? Was the event inevitable?

I listened to the audio version of this book. It was recorded with a full cast of characters which definitely gives the feeling of being there, on campus, in the middle of the big scandel. I loved the different viewpoints presented by the boys, the girl, a girlfriend of one of the boys, parents, headmaster, and even a lunch lady at the school. It gives you a complete picture while letting you see that no one character in the book had such a complete picture of what ocurred. Testimony held my interest and gave me some things to think about, but in the end it is a pretty dark and disturbing cautionary tale.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(1 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment
Laurie Blum, December 28, 2008 (view all comments by Laurie Blum)
I have read all of Anita Shreve's books and have liked every one of them. However, I believe "Testimony" is her best novel yet as this great author provides the reader with thought provoking scenarios to make them do some thinking as each person gives their "testimony". The subject matter of this novel is very serious and Ms. Shreve handles it in a way that makes it an educational experience for the reader to see how something like this could affect so many lives. As a mother of one son & seven grandsons, (two in college) "Testimony" kept me awake one full night turning pages, thinking: wow! this could be "one of my boys!" The characters, whether they were students, faculty or parents were compelling. Be sure to add this novel to your reading list which also would be an appropriate selection for book review clubs - at least 4 stars ****

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(3 of 4 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment
OneMansView, November 30, 2008 (view all comments by OneMansView)
Tragic consequences

This novel is a poignant and rather disheartening story set in Avery, Vermont, mostly connected with matters related to the Avery Academy, a private school for high-school-age kids. It is a story of unintended consequences, but is it really possible to contain the fallout from a discovered affair of a headmaster and the mother of a basketball player or, even more significant to this story, from the posting on the Internet of a tape of a drunken orgy in a dorm room involving a prematurely experienced fourteen-year-old girl and three older boys from the basketball team.

The story opens with Mike Bordwin the headmaster watching the tape and knowing that many lives and the world of Avery Academy are about to be profoundly disrupted, if not destroyed. The author allows the story to unfold gradually through a series of chapters told from the perspective of the principals of the events as well as peripheral characters. Besides headmaster Mike, basketball player Silas Quinney, his girlfriend Noelle, and Silas’ mother are most important to the story.

While the episode caught on tape was in clear violation of the law, the author’s concerns are with how personalities, circumstances, and the various environments developed and interacted to lead to this scenario. The reader is drawn into the story as there are several places where there is a desire to reach out to the characters and advise them to take a different route, to make a different decision. Wouldn’t we all like to do that with our lives – change a decision from years ago? But they, like us, have to live with what they have chosen, regardless of unpleasant results.

As might be expected the story gradually changes as more is revealed, as a perspective is contradicted by one more credible. The main characters are fairly well understandable by virtue of their thought processes and actions. The book is fairly easy to read, although the shifting around between characters and time frames is a little difficult to follow, but one can generally figure it out.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(2 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment
View all 4 comments
back to top

Product Details

ISBN:
9780316059862
Author:
Shreve, Anita
Publisher:
Little Brown and Company
Subject:
General
Subject:
Teenage girls
Subject:
Boarding schools
Subject:
Suspense fiction
Copyright:
2008
Publication Date:
October 2008
Binding:
Hardcover
Language:
English
Pages:
307
Dimensions:
9.50x6.32x1.08 in. 1.16 lbs.
back to top

Other books you might like

  1. $2.95 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    The Hour I First Believed (P.S.)

    Wally Lamb 9780060988432
  2. $11.99 Google eBooks add to wish list

    I See You Everywhere

    Julia Glass 9780307377777
  3. $10.50 Used Hardcover add to wish list

    Delicate Edible Birds: And Other Stories

    Lauren Groff 9781401340865
  4. $5.95 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

    Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows 9780385341004
  5. $12.90 Google eBooks add to wish list

    The Eleventh Man

    Ivan Doig 9780547350585
  6. $3.50 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    Thank You for Smoking: A Novel

    Christopher Buckley 9780812976526
back to top

Related Subjects

Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z

Testimony Used Hardcover
0 stars - 0 reviews
$5.50 In Stock
Product details 307 pages Little Brown and Company - English 9780316059862 Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review" by , "Shreve's novels (Body Surfing; The Weight of Water) benefit from propulsive plots, and her mixed latest, with its timely theme of debauchery among children of privilege, does not lack in this regard. The first paragraph foreshadows a tragedy in which three marriages are destroyed, the lives of three students at a private school in Vermont are ruined, and death claims an innocent victim. The precipitating event is a sex tape involving three members of the boys' basketball team and a freshman girl. Beginning with an account of the debacle by the Avery School's then headmaster, and segueing to the voices of the participants in the orgy, plus their parents and others touched by the scandal, the narrative explores the widening consequences of a single event. Shreve's character delineation is astute, and the novel's moral questions — ranging from the boys' behavior to the headmaster's breach of legal ethics to the guilt of those involved in the death — are salient if heavy-handed, while the female characters are 'wicked' in the way women have always been stereotypically portrayed. The novel is clever, but the revolving cast of narrators often feels predictable and forced, keeping the novel on the near side of credible." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review" by , "Shreve arrows in on many targets...as she flawlessly weaves a tale that is mesmerizing, hypnotic, and compulsive. No one walks away unscathed, and that includes the reader. Highly recommended."
"Review" by , "Shreve views all of the characters, even the most flawed, with a good deal of compassion, revealing the heartbreaking consequences of a single reckless act."
"Review" by , "[A] compelling tale of teenage scandal and its brutal aftermath in a New England hamlet."
"Review" by , "A fascinating exercise in storytelling from multiple points of view....A vigorous and provocative book."
spacer
spacer
  • back to top
Follow us on...



Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.