The Sweet Hereafter centers on a school bus accident in a small town, as told by the first-person accounts of four primary characters: bus driver Dolores Driscoll; garage owner and surviving parent of two children killed in the crash, Billy Ansel; attorney Mitchell Stevens; and a surviving, but crippled by the accident student, Nicole Burnell. The novel is simultaneously sardonic and cathartic, with characters so fully rendered that it's as if you've known them all your life. 

While the primary plot deals with the aftermath of the bus going off the road and into the frozen waters of an undrained sand pit in a small town, killing 14 children, The Sweet Hereafter is largely about the hidden motivations of individuals as the town attempts to cope with the accident and consider who to blame. And the life experiences and decisions made by these four primary characters shape the outcome, for better or worse. 

A sense of loss and guilt colors Dolores. Billy is tainted by grief, not only from losing his children but his wife five years prior. Mitchell is motivated by his anger at a world that contributed to the alienation of his daughter. And Nicole is motivated by a dark family secret. While Banks shares how other characters cope with the accident through the eyes of these four characters, the four set the unexpected direction of the town and leave the reader feeling a similar sense of loss and grief.

While the story told isn't something I could ever add to my favorites list, it has elevated Russel Banks to one of my favorite writers. Enough so, all of his unread works will now be added to my reading rotation. Banks has not only impacted as a reader with this novel, but my own writing as an author. I read the book in five days, but I could not put it down despite having others open. Incredible.