The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb

I consider Wally Lamb to be one of the most personally influential authors I have read. I have waited in anticipation for this book to be released. He lacked in areas I normally site as his strength - character development. Usually Lamb has the power to pull you into the body of the character and feel their emotions with them however in this work, I merely felt that he used side stories to distract from the fact that none of them had depth. Maureen, 'Mo' is the character I found the most appealing, but because the story is written from her husbands point of view, her deep tragedy goes without any sort of lasting impact on the reader. Lamb claims to have chosen events & people that occurred over the past 8 years to draw inspiration from and give them everlasting tributes through their impact in his characters lives. But all he manages to achieve is a listless and unconvincing review of the events of the stories we still see day to day on the 6 o'clock news. His closing remarks reveal that he struggled with writing this book, and I believe the pressure got to him... he wasn't true to himself in this work. Such a shame