Review: Testimony, by Anita Shreve

In her recent novel, Testimony, Anita Shreve presents a situation that is one of every parents' worst nightmares: a videotape of high school boys having group sex in their dorm with an obviously younger girl makes its way to the principal of an expensive private school, and rather than being delt with discreetly, the matter blows up in everyone's faces and makes its way to national media. Rather than delve into the act itself, Shreve takes readers through the back stories of the characters involved, utilizing a silent grad student interviewer from a local university to draw much of the story surrounding the actual incident from the students involved.

On the positive side, the characters were generally interesting and the topics involved - excessive teenage drinking, the confusion of youth sexuality and power, the role of the media in making any situation far worse than it would have otherwise been. It was easy to read, and since the chapters were short, also easy to put down for periods and pick up again without feeling lost.

However, Shreve's novels are falling into the trap of being predictable. She often uses the 'fourth-quarter shocker', springing a surprise at the last minute to bring a few plot lines together. That's getting old, and even in itself presents new questions that there isn't enough time to answer. Also, there were way too many voices in this novel, all crowding around, talking practically simultaneously. Some weren't even in the book more than once, dropping pieces of information out of an abyss, and making it difficult to keep track of who is saying what about whom. This multiplicity of characters also makes it difficult for Shreve to really delve into any one in particular, or make any real statement about any of the topics. The character I would really like to have known more about, the girl, had little in-depth analysis at all. If Shreve didn't want her to seem deeper than she really was, that could have been resolved by allowing the interviewer to either have a small voice, or close the novel with an article written by the grad student with her opinion. Because the Act had occurred before the novel really began, this was more of a character study than anything, and unfortunately, the study part wasn't there to back it up enough to make up for the lack of forward-moving plot.

I wouldn't call this novel bad; it's a relatively easy read, with a basically interesting story. Shreve has lived up to her reputation of producing perfectly acceptable middle-of-the-road fiction that is neither taxing nor enlightening. If you're going on a trip where you expect to be interrupted often, and don't want to be overly engaged or lost on reentry, this would be a good novel for you.

Rating: two out of five stars. Not boring, not overly engaging. Eeh.