Lewis, Pam 1943–

PERSONAL: Born 1943.

ADDRESSES: Home—Storrs, CT. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

CAREER: Writer.

WRITINGS:

Speak Softly, She Can Hear (fiction), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2005.

Short fiction has appeared in New Yorker.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A novel.

SIDELIGHTS: Pam Lewis established a solid reputation for writing short fiction before embarking on her first novel, Speak Softly, She Can Hear. In an interview with Carol Fitzgerald, Joe Hartlaub, and Wiley Saichek on the Bookreporter.com, Lewis explained her view of the difference between writing short stories and writing novels: "Writing a novel is a little like training with weights. And writing short stories is the sprint you get to have without them. You need to know so much more about everything in a novel. In short stories you focus on the central, somewhat small action, and don't need to explain everything."

Speak Softly, She Can Hear focuses on Carole Mason. When the novel begins, Carole is a shy, overweight sixteen-year-old student in New York City in 1965 who, on the advice of her friend Naomi, goes to a Vermont cabin with the intent of losing her virginity to handsome, twenty-six-year-old Eddie Lindbaeck. When Eddie's working-class friend Rita shows up for a threesome, Carole is drunk and goes along. When Carole wakes up Rita is dead, and Eddie claims Carole killed the woman during their sexual escapade. Naomi then comes upon the scene and helps them dispose of the body. For years following the incident, Eddie and Naomi blackmail Carole and thwart all her efforts to escape from their harassment and her own guilt. Carole flees from her family and her upper-class life, ends up in a hippie commune in California, and eventually moves to Vermont in the 1970s. Once established in Vermont, she starts a restaurant and finds a kind boyfriend named Will. Although Carole has finally seemed to turn her life around, when Eddie and Naomi settle in the same Vermont town, Carole must either run away or face the truth no matter what the consequences.

In a review of Speak Softly, She Can Hear in MBR Bookwatch, Harriet Klausner wrote that Lewis's "debut novel is a chilling thriller, full of non-stop action that grips readers so much that they will finish this novel in one sitting." A Publishers Weekly contributor commented that the book "is well-written and gripping enough that readers will stay up late to see whether beleaguered, tortured Carole can free herself from the despicable Eddie." Carolyn Kubisz, writing in Booklist, noted that Lewis "tells an engrossing tale of an unlikely friendship, the burden of keeping secrets, and the insidiousness of lies." Joe Hartlaub noted in his Bookreporter.com that "the magnificence of Lewis's plotting here cannot be understated." Hartlaub added, "Lewis has created a haunting work that does not comfortably fit into any particular genre but that easily can be embraced by several." In a review in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Karen Carlin called the novel "an excellent debut," adding that the author's "settings are vibrant, from the hippie culture in San Francisco to rural small-town life in Vermont." Carlin also noted that Lewis's "descriptions, especially of angst-ridden teen years and those friendships that pull us through them, are dead on. In subtle strokes, she paints a menacing darkness around Carole."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 1, 2005, Carolyn Kubisz, review of Speak Softly, She Can Hear, p. 819.

Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2005, review of Speak Softly, She Can Hear, p. 76.

MBR Bookwatch, March, 2005, Harriet Klausner, review of Speak Softly, She Can Hear.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 15, 2005, Karen Carlin, review of Speak Softly, She Can Hear.

Publishers Weekly, January 24, 2005, review of Speak Softly, She Can Hear, p. 219.

ONLINE

AllReaders.com, http://www.allreaders.com/ (July 11, 2005), Nancy Larrabee, review of Speak Softly, She Can Hear.

Best Reviews, http://thebestreviews.com/ (March 13, 2005), Harriet Klausner, review of Speak Softly, She Can Hear.

Bookpage.com, http://www.bookpage.com/ (July 11, 2005), Martin Kich, review of Speak Softly, She Can Hear.

Bookreporter.com, http://www.bookreporter.com/ (March 4, 2005), Carol Fitzgerald, Joe Hartlaub, and Wiley Saichek, interview with author; (July 11, 2005) Joe Hartlaub, review of Speak Softly, She Can Hear.