Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks Term Paper

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Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks. Specifically, it will contain a review of book, while convincing a reader why he or she should read the book or ignore it. "The Sweet Hereafter" is a disturbing and enlightening book about the spirit and will of a New England town touched by a tragic accident.

THE SWEET HEREAFTER

Russell Banks' "The Sweet Hereafter" is not an easy book to read, or put down. It is not a happy story, and yet somehow, the characters grow on the reader, making it difficult to forget them after the book is back on the shelf. The story opens with the tragic crash of a school bus that kills fourteen children. The rest of the story deals with the aftermath of the crash, and how a small New England town deals with the tragedy. Nearly everyone in the town of Sam Dent is affected, and the novel is told from four different character's perspectives, each affected in a different way. This is an important and meaningful book because it deals not only with tragedy, but the aftermath of tragedy, when the living have to go on living, just like Nichole Burnell, a teenager who was on the bus and has to live the rest of her life paralyzed in a wheelchair.

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Perhaps that is one reason this book is so disturbing - it shows life as it really is, rather than glossing over the tragic events of the crash and how they affect the town from then on. It is difficult to read about the vulture like lawyers who descend on the town after the crash, hoping to find "deep pocket" defendants to sue. Many of the townsfolk see through the avaricious lawyers, including the pathetic alcoholic Billy Ansel, the father of twins killed in the accident, who realizes "there'll be all kinds of appeals, and I'll be tangled up in this mess for the next five years.... This thing is never going to go away" (Banks 194). Indeed, for many "this thing" will never go away, and the novel makes that clear. It also makes it….....

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