Anita Shreve’s novel Testimony is not an easy read. In it, she tackles a subject all parents wish didn’t exist: the prevalence of excessive drinking and sexual activity among high school students. She doesn’t just allude to the behaviors. She begins the novel with a graphic description of a tape confiscated at an elite private boarding school in Vermont and spends the rest of the book showing how those actions affect others.
The activity described on the tape is disturbing, but the consequences of decisions made by the main characters in the story are chilling. Lives are destroyed. The reputation of the school is ruined. A small town goes into decline, all because a group of teenagers chose to engage in risky behavior on a Saturday night.
But as the plot unfolds, readers learn about hidden choices made by several of the adults in the story. They begin to see how those decisions led to what happened on the tape. And, suddenly, the story isn’t about thoughtless, risky teen behaviors. It’s about adults who deliberately chose to satisfy their hidden desires even though they knew the hurt it might inflict upon others.
Testimony is a fairly short book. It shouldn’t have taken long to read. I could only take so much of its downward spiral at one sitting. Though I didn’t like it much, I’m glad I finished it. Why?
Because since reading it, the importance of hidden choices, the ones we convince ourselves no one else will ever know about, keeps coming back to me. Before making decisions I think about how my choices affect others and my relationships with them. And several truths illustrated in Testimony echo in my brain:
Our decisions and actions matter.
They can have unimaginable consequences, for good or evil.
They can hurt or help innocent people, so it’s important to choose wisely.
If you don’t believe those statements are true, read Testimony. By the end of the book, maybe you’ll change your mind.
