The Sweet Hereafter is divided into a series of first-person narrations of a fatal school bus crash and the devastation it brings on lives in a small town in rural Upstate New York. Most of the children on the bus die, but a few survive, along with the bus driver and a father whose daily commute follows the bus route. Lawyers, news media, and deep pain visit the town in the aftermath. The narratives are focused and contained, and the stories never get entangled. A gritty, emotional realism characterized by resignation imbues the novel—a feeling that is also prominent in the film adaptation of Affliction. This was a very good read.
Notes:
The Sweet Hereafter is loosely based on an actual bus crash in Alton, Texas.
The film Affliction was directed by Paul Schrader and costarred Sissy Spacek and Willem Dafoe, who, as one would expect, were also great. I have always particularly enjoyed this short exchange in the film:
Rolfe Whitehouse (Dafoe): I was always careful around Pop. I was a careful child. And I'm a careful adult. But at least I was never afflicted with that man's anger.
Wade Whitehouse (Nolte): That's what you think.
