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James Finn Cotter (review date 2 May 1992)

SOURCE: Cotter, James Finn. Review of The Sweet Hereafter, by Russell Banks. America 116, no. 4157 (2 May 1992): 391.

[In the following review, Cotter asserts that the driving thematic focus of The Sweet Hereafter is Banks's “relentless quest to plumb the mystery of tragedy as it affects individuals and communities.”]

A school bus runs off the road into a frozen water-filled sandpit and 14 children are killed. The Sweet Hereafter, by Russell Banks, narrates the bitter aftermath that envelopes the upstate New York community of Sam Dent in the months that follow. Sorrow, anger and recriminations divide people already isolated by vast space and cold climate. Lonely lives turn inward and winter locks in spring.

Banks, the author of ten other books including Continental Drift and Affliction, describes the barren but majestic landscape of mountains and...

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1. Introduction
2. Criticism
   1. Howard Frank Mosher (review date 8 September 1991)
   2. Jeff Danziger (review date 24 September 1991)
   3. Donna Rifkind (review date 17 April 1992)
   4. James Finn Cotter (review date 2 May 1992)
   5. Ross Leckie (essay date summer 1994)
   6. Richard Eder (review date 21 May 1995)
   7. Ann Hulbert (review date 29 May 1995)
   8. Penelope Mesic (review date 11 June 1995)
   9. Phil Baker (review date 30 June 1995)
   10. Brian Morton (review date 7 July 1995)
   11. Ed Peaco (review date fall 1995)
   12. Jerry Herron (essay date fall 1996)
   13. Robert Niemi (essay date 1997)
   14. Henry Mayer (review date 8 March 1998)
   15. Russell Banks and Christine Benvenuto (interview date March-April 1998)
   16. Alfred Kazin (review date 9 April 1998)
   17. Lawrence Hill (review date 13 April 1998)
   18. James M. McPherson (review date May 1998)
   19. Joyce Appleby (review date 22 May 1998)
   20. Russell Banks, Robert Faggen, and Barry Munger (interview date summer 1998)
   21. Millicent Bell (review date fall 1998)
   22. Paul Binding (review date 15 September 2000)
   23. Kathleen Snodgrass (review date spring 2001)
3. Further Reading
4. Copyright