The harrowing theme of a school shooting is the setting for our most recent read, Three Hours.
Three Hours – the blurb
In rural Somerset in the middle of a blizzard, the unthinkable happens: a school is under siege.
Pupils and teachers barricade themselves into classrooms, the library, the theater. The headmaster lies wounded in the library, unable to help his trapped students and staff. Outside, a police psychiatrist must identify the gunmen, while parents gather desperate for news.
In three intense hours, all must find the courage to stand up to evil and save the people they love.
This doesn’t happen in England
A school shooting is always going to be a disturbing read but the most startling thing, at least for me, was the fact the school is in Somerset. Not gangland America with its guns a plenty. A private school with beach access and a theater. They even have a pottery room for Pete’s sake. This type of thing doesn’t happen in England (please God). Yet it was, and realistically too. Lupton threads real life – the Columbine massacre, racist headlines – and winds it so deep into her story that her work of fiction springs off the page as being believable. She shows you how ridiculously easy it is to build a bomb to the point I wanted to delete her words and not let anyone else see them so those inclined don’t know where to look. So that Lupton’s fiction cannot become our reality.
The brave soul can mend even disaster
The characters, those the other side of a gun, were heroic, from teacher to student. I was moved to tears several times worrying about their safety. Thinking with dread that they were all going to die. The ingenuity and courage of the teachers was humbling. Refugees Rafi and Bari were also fascinating to read about, their history squashed into the story perfectly. Yet Lupton also did a fantastic job of seeing things from the other side – of the gun. The reasons that led them to that snowy school, the vulnerability. Yes there was vulnerability, at least from some. And then of course there was the parents waiting for news. Their desperation, their realisation. Phew!
Fair is foul and foul is fair
The contrast/parallels of Macbeth running alongside the shooting were a fab little side note. Lupton’s writing however was just as exquisite. Not least from the start where the medals awarded to heroes of World War Two were turned into shrapnel. That first page at least is worth a second visit. AND THEN THERE IS THE TWISTS. God the twists! One gave me goose bumps. I’m going to put it down to Lupton’s cleverness and not my lack of intelligence that I didn’t realize one or two things until well in to the story.
I thought it perfect, really sensitively handled, really well thought out and written. Morbid curiosity had me glued and I flew through it. I can’t wait to see what comes next from Lupton.