Book Review: Testimony by Anita Shreve

2008 at 4pm     Posted by Rebecca Schinsky

Recently published October 21, 2008

In her latest novel Testimony, author Anita Shreve explores issues surrounding teenage sexuality and the long-term ramifications of our in-the-moment decisions. When a video surfaces featuring a 14-year-old freshman girl engaging in sexual acts with three senior boys, Avery Academy in Avery, Vermont is shaken to its core. The headmaster, knowing the press will have a heyday with a story about sexual misconduct at a prestigious private school, initially reacts by trying to resolve the problem in-house and contain the story. Of course, word gets out, and the lives of all involved are changed forever.

Rather than telling the story in a linear narrative format, Shreve gives us chapters from many different characters’ perspectives. We hear from the headmaster, from all of the boys involved and from their family members; we hear from the young girl at the center of the controversy, and we hear from her roommate; we hear from one boy’s girlfriend, and from members of Avery’s faculty and staff, and from people who live in town and know the boys involved.

Shreve utilizes primarily first- and third-person perspectives and gives one boy’s mother a second-person narrative that puts the reader right into the situation. Her writing is compelling and very readable. In fact, I started this book Sunday around noon and finished it later in the evening, reading it in, essentially, one sitting. Her explanation of the events leading up to the fateful Saturday night and her exploration of the ramifications of the decisions made in its aftermath are insightful and force the reader to ask a lot of important questions.

At the center of the controversy is the question of who is to blame. Are the boys, by virtue of the fact that they are legally of age, automatically to blame for taking advantage of a younger girl who was clearly intoxicated? Does the 14-year-old girl, who appears to have participated willingly but later claims she was raped, at all to blame? Can a 14-year-old girl seduce three older boys and take advantage of them?

While the questions that are literally related to the plot are interesting, perhaps the most important issue Testimony asks us to examine is the way in which decisions and actions we undertake in the heat of the moment can change our lives forever. The boys involved in the video were all talented athletes with bright futures ahead of them. The girl was just beginning her high school career, and though she was dealing with a troubled family life, she had a lot to look forward to and would encounter many opportunities for growth at Avery. The administration and faculty, who are as shocked by the video as the rest of the community, do their best to handle the situation with sensitivity and responsibility, but it’s shaky ground, and they do not always make the best decisions. Shreve weaves their stories together masterfully and allows us to get into their heads and hearts and to understand what they are feeling and why they’re thinking what they’re thinking.

I enjoyed reading Testimony and would recommend it to readers who enjoy a compelling story and the multiple narrative structure. I didn’t really care for the ripped-from-the-headlines nature of the plot line (a similar scandal took place at a real school in New England a few years ago and was written about in a book called Restless Virgins), but I think Shreve’s handling of the subject matter was excellent, if not a bit predictable. 3.75 out of 5.

Have you read Testimony?  What do you think?