Testimony (Paperback)

** 'Anita Shreve is back on cracking form with TESTIMONY. What is so fresh and resonant about this novel is the clever way in which the author unpacks the events with a series of separate narratives. Each voice contributes an additional layer of impasto to the picture; each layer, in turn, has to be mined carefully for its information and character and situation. Poised and absolutely steady-handed, this is a gripping piece of deconstruction' Elizabeth Buchan, SUNDAY TIMES ** 'Anita Shreve's latest novel, TESTIMONY is one of her best. With her acute eye for behaviour and an exquisite ear for dialogue, Shreve explores the actions and reaction that will destroy a community through their all-too-human desires' EXPRESS ** 'Anita Shreve is a phenomenon. As ever - and even though the novel is written from different points of view - the power of Shreve's writing lies in it relentless passivity. The prose is undemonstrative, yet insidiously accomplished. For some, it may be reassuring that an author who can command a readership as large as Shreve's should choose to write a novel of this sort. On the surface, it is a brave, uncompromising choice for someone occasionally criticised as being a "woman's writer". Yet I think that TESTIMONY goes further than this. It is so unforgiving of a panoply of human frailty as to be misanthropic' Charlie Hill, NEW STATESMAN ** 'A perfectly pitched account of human fallibility and the snares of temptation' DAILY MAIL ** 'Her experience as a storyteller shows in the writing, which is deft, the multiples voices authentic and subtly characterized. The love between Silas and his girlfriend Noelle is untouched by the cynicism around them. The other characters are perhaps too flawed to be likeable - there is a sense of each having brought disaster to themselves - but the two young loves are moving. Overall, however, Testimony is a story of ordinary people and of the ripples that spread out from the decisions they make. It touches on questions of privilege, class, community, and where we lay the blame when things fall apart' Kate Salter, TLS ** 'Shreve knows how to hook your attention... Testimony is a page-turner, its language crisp and uncluttered'DAILY TELEGRAPH ** 'A narrative structure and a sense of place and character as delicate as a spider's web ... At every level, our sympathies are engaged or repelled by qualities of voice - querulous, self-serving, coolly appraising, sleazy, hurt, confused, and oddly rhapsodic. The campus novel has often been thought to be a peculiarly male preserve, but it subtlest exponents have tended to be female: Mary McCarthy, Alison Lurie, Donna Tartt, and now Shreve. Shreve manages this aspect of the novel beautifully. It is worth comparing TESTIMONY with Ian McEwan's over-praised ATONEMENT. Testimony is also a sobering and chastening indictment of family, social, legal and educational life. Not quite, perhaps, a "condition of America" novel, but as close as anyone since Donna Tartt has dared to come' - Brian Morton, SUNDAY HERALD ** 'If Zoe Heller hadn't already used the title NOTES ON A SCANDALl, it would have suited this novel... Shreve's prose is spare and powerful, and she excels in showing how two people might perceive and interpret the same event in a contrasting way. [An] elegant and addictive novel about the way our lives can be shaped forever' - Vanessa Curtis, SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY ** 'Stylistically and structurally, TESTIMONY recalls some of the literary devices favoured particularly by Joyce Carol Oates, and Shreve employs them to good effect. Shreve's premise for her novel is thoroughly intriguing; and, as with Shriver's and Picoult's books, which have also dealt with teenage violence or sex, it's a highly timely one' Lesley McDowell, SCOTSMAN ** 'Shreve has delivered a novel that not only gets under the skin of its characters, but also under the reader's skin, as the voices testify to the saga's tragic conclusion' SUNDAY BUSINESS POST ** 'As each account of those involved unfolds, she expertly draws us into this heartbreaking tale' - IN STYLE ** 'Told with pace and intensity, the novel shows how one mistake can cause a ripple effect' EVE ** 'The brilliant Anita Shreve returns with another emotionally charged story that will keep you hooked until the final page' BELLA ** 'A tense read' WOMAN AND HOME

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. A gripping emotional drama with the pace of a thriller, Anita Shreve's Testimony explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.