His Whole Life
by Elizabeth Hay
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Pub Date Mar 03 2016 | Archive Date Mar 07 2016
Quercus Books | Maclehose Press
Description
The captivating new novel by the #1 Canadian bestselling, Giller Prize-winning author of Late Nights on Air and Alone in the Classroom.
Starting with something as simple as a boy who wants a dog, His Whole Life takes us into a richly intimate world where everything that matters to him is at risk: family, nature, home.
At the outset ten-year-old Jim and his Canadian mother and American father are on a journey from New York City to a lake in eastern Ontario during the last hot days of August. What unfolds is a completely enveloping story that spans a few pivotal years of his youth. Moving from city to country, summer to winter, wellbeing to illness, the novel charts the deepening bond between mother and son even as the family comes apart.
Set in the mid-1990s, when Quebec is on the verge of leaving Canada, this captivating novel is an unconventional coming of age story as only Elizabeth Hay could tell it. It draws readers in with its warmth, wisdom, its vivid sense of place, its searching honesty, and nuanced portrait of the lives of one family and those closest to it. Hay explores the mystery of how members of a family can hurt each other so deeply, and remember those hurts in such detail, yet find openings that shock them with love and forgiveness. This is vintage Elizabeth Hay at the height of her powers.
Starting with something as simple as a boy who wants a dog, His Whole Life takes us into a richly intimate world where everything that matters to him is at risk: family, nature, home.
At the outset ten-year-old Jim and his Canadian mother and American father are on a journey from New York City to a lake in eastern Ontario during the last hot days of August. What unfolds is a completely enveloping story that spans a few pivotal years of his youth. Moving from city to country, summer to winter, wellbeing to illness, the novel charts the deepening bond between mother and son even as the family comes apart.
Set in the mid-1990s, when Quebec is on the verge of leaving Canada, this captivating novel is an unconventional coming of age story as only Elizabeth Hay could tell it. It draws readers in with its warmth, wisdom, its vivid sense of place, its searching honesty, and nuanced portrait of the lives of one family and those closest to it. Hay explores the mystery of how members of a family can hurt each other so deeply, and remember those hurts in such detail, yet find openings that shock them with love and forgiveness. This is vintage Elizabeth Hay at the height of her powers.
Advance Praise
"[She has an] evocative grace that brings to mind Annie Proulx" - Washington Post
"How lucky we are to have her, this writer who stares down the tough issues in life - whether domestic or political - with such wit and grace. There is much at play here - a country and a marriage that may not survive, sins that may or may not be forgiven. Yet Hay's luminous prose - and a last scene that soars right off the page - is transcendent, redeeming the best and worst things" - Toronto Star
"Hay creates enormous spaces with few words, and makes the reader party to the journey, listening, marvelling" - Globe and Mail
"How lucky we are to have her, this writer who stares down the tough issues in life - whether domestic or political - with such wit and grace. There is much at play here - a country and a marriage that may not survive, sins that may or may not be forgiven. Yet Hay's luminous prose - and a last scene that soars right off the page - is transcendent, redeeming the best and worst things" - Toronto Star
"Hay creates enormous spaces with few words, and makes the reader party to the journey, listening, marvelling" - Globe and Mail
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9780857055460 |
| PRICE | £14.99 (GBP) |
