something about "The Sweet Hereafter" by Russell Banks

I am a fan of the 1997 film, Affliction. In that film, Nick Nolte and James Coburn deliver rich performances depicting stricken men. The film is based on a book, published in 1989, by Russel Banks. Seeking other works by Banks, I found The Sweet Hereafter, which was published in 1991.

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.

About the film "Affliction"

When George Clooney does a film, his character is George Clooney. Same for Pacino, DeNiro (now), and so many others. But Nick Nolte transforms himself, really acts the part, and no matter what people generally think of his acting, he's underrated. The proof is here in his 1997 portrayal of a back town New Hampshire policeman named Wade Whitehouse. Vulnerable, teetering, Wade shuffles around town, pivoting those broad shoulders, wagging his head, fidgeting like an insecure teenager. Effectively, that's what he is; although grown, Wade constantly redefines himself through the memories of an abused child trapped near the booze-fueled anger of his stricken father, monstrously played by James Coburn, a man consuming whiskey, consumed with self-hatred and destructive conceptions of masculinity.

In the margin of the film is Willem Dafoe as Wade's resigned but more successful brother, Rolfe. Rolfe seems to have made peace with his childhood. Or maybe he just shut down emotionally to some degree. Having grown up on eggshells, he describes himself as having been a careful child, and, now, a careful adult. This film is so rich, and well punctuated throughout with Rolfe's voice-overs; the following two passages are high-water marks. The first, when Wade crosses over from desperate to lost:

You will say that I should have known terrible things were about to happen. You will say that I was responsible. But even so, what could I have done by then? Wade lived on the edge of his emotions. He was always first to receive the brunt of our father's anger. He had no perspective to retreat to, even in a crisis.

and, at the end:

Facts do not make history. Our stories, Wade's and mine, describe the lives of the boys and men for thousands of years: boys who were beaten by their fathers, whose capacity for love and trust was crippled almost at birth, men whose best hope for connection with other human beings lay in detachment, as if life were over. It's how we keep from destroying in turn our own children and terrorizing the women who have the misfortune to love us; how we absent ourselves from the tradition of male violence; how we decline the seduction of revenge.