The Sweet Hereafter (novel)

The Sweet Hereafter is a 1991 novel by American author Russell Banks. It is set in a small town in the aftermath of a deadly school bus accident that has killed most of the town's children. The novel was adapted into an award-winning 1997 film of the same name by Canadian director Atom Egoyan.

The book, written in 1991, was chosen in 1998 by Nancy Pearl, the then Director of the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library, and Chris Higashi, the current Program Manager, to be the first selection for "If All Seattle Read the Same Book", a program that has continued in the Seattle community and at many other public libraries around the country.

The Sweet Hereafter is a multiple first person narrative depicting life in a small town in Upstate New York in the wake of a terrible school bus accident in which numerous local children are killed. Hardly able to cope with the loss, their grieving parents are approached by a slick city lawyer who wants them to sue for damages. At first the parents are reluctant to do so, but eventually they are persuaded by the lawyer that filing a class action lawsuit would ease their minds and also be the right thing to do.

As most of the children are dead, the case now depends on the few surviving witnesses to say the right things in court. In particular, it is 14-year-old Nichole Burnell, who was sitting at the front of the bus and is now paralyzed from the waist down, and whose deposition is all-important. However, she unexpectedly accuses Dolores Driscoll, the driver, of speeding and thus causing the accident. When she does so, all hopes of ever receiving money are thwarted. All the people involved know that Nichole is lying but cannot do anything about it. Only her father knows why, but he is unable to publicly reveal his daughter's motives.

The novel captures the atmosphere in a small town suddenly shaken by catastrophe. Fathers take to drinking; secret affairs are abruptly ended; whole families move away. Only the reader/viewer knows that Mitchell Stephens, the lawyer, has himself effectively lost his own child—his estranged, drug-addicted daughter informs him over the phone that she has just tested HIV positive.

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