His Whole Life, by Elizabeth Hay
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His Whole Life, by Elizabeth Hay
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Starting with something as simple as a boy who wants a dog, award-winning novelist Elizabeth Hay's His Whole Life transports readers to an emotionally rich landscape populated by unforgettable characters, yet overshadowed by a sense of loss. At the outset, ten-year-old Jim and his Canadian mother and American father are on a journey from New York City to a beautiful lake in eastern Ontario during the last hot days of August. Over the next few pivotal years of Jim's youth, the novel moves from city to country, summer to winter, well-being to illness, as it charts the deepening bond between mother and son, even as their small family starts to fall to pieces. Set in the mid-1990s, when Quebec was on the verge of seceding from Canada, this captivating novel is an unconventional coming-of-age story that draws readers in with its warmth, wisdom, its vivid sense of place, its searching honesty, and nuanced portrait of the lives of a family and those closest to it. Writing at the height of her powers, the award-winning Elizabeth Hay explores the mystery of how family members can wound each other so deeply, and remember those hurts in such detail, yet find surprising ways to make room for love, and even forgiveness.
His Whole Life, by Elizabeth Hay- Amazon Sales Rank: #713411 in Books
- Published on: 2015-10-27
- Released on: 2015-10-27
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.38" h x 1.13" w x 6.50" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 308 pages
Review - "Hay creates enormous spaces with few words, and makes the reader party to the journey, listening, marvelling..." "Globe and Mail" - "[She has an] evocative grace that brings to mind Annie Proulx." "Washington Post" - "Hay has a delightful, deadpan wit, the kind that sneaks up on you." "New York Times" - "Hay is a master of characterization. In their fallibility, their moral struggles and their conflicted desires, [her] characters ... ring utterly true."" Toronto Star" - "Hay is capable of sending palpable chills down the reader's spine...." "Quill & Quire" - "A master storyteller..." "Winnipeg Free Press""Hay creates enormous spaces with few words, and makes the reader party to the journey, listening, marvelling..." "Globe and Mail" "[She has an] evocative grace that brings to mind Annie Proulx." "Washington Post" "Hay has a delightful, deadpan wit, the kind that sneaks up on you." "New York Times" "Hay is a master of characterization. In their fallibility, their moral struggles and their conflicted desires, [her] characters ... ring utterly true."" Toronto Star" "Hay is capable of sending palpable chills down the reader's spine...." "Quill & Quire" "A master storyteller..." "Winnipeg Free Press""
About the Author Elizabeth Hay is the bestselling, award-winning author of Late Nights on Air, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her other works include A Student of Weather (finalist for the Giller Prize and the Ottawa Book Award), Garbo Laughs (winner of the Ottawa Book Award and a finalist for the Governor General's Award), and Small Change (stories). In 2002, she received the prestigious Marian Engel Award. Elizabeth Hay lives and writes in Ottawa.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Separation By Roger Brunyate [Note: I was sent a copy of the book by the author's US publishers, wanting to know how it might appeal to readers outside Canada. My review is written essentially from that perspective.]The author explains in a prefatory note that the novel is set against the background of the 1995 referendum on Quebec independence, which came within a hair's breadth of succeeding, with the less nearly successful 1980 referendum as its background shadow. The image of a country almost splitting itself apart becomes a metaphor for splits in families: wives separating from husbands, brothers turning against sisters, children becoming estranged from their parents. Although the novel contains some interesting characters and touching moments, I am not sure that the conceit succeeds, at least for non-Canadian readers, who are unlikely to take the threat of separation so personally -- or, frankly, to feel with the characters in the few moments when they take sides on the issue. If this was to be the guiding metaphor, I would expect it to occupy a more central position, and to have a greater hold on the major characters.The other reason why, to my mind, Hay's themes do not fully gel is that she makes separation not only her subject, but also her method of writing. She shows little snatches in the lives of her characters, mostly at a lake in Eastern Ontario, but some in Manhattan. These moments are touching, tragic, or briefly happy; many are more oblique; but with all of them, you feel that the point is less what Hay describes than what lingers in the gaps between them. This is true even when the writing is as compressed as it is here:"Dry crumbs dug into the bare skin of her right wrist. She hardly felt them. Sometimes you wake up to the history beside you. The man lying beside you in bed. The province adjoining yours. The country. She sat quite still, her face wide open."Hay tries to bring everything together into this short paragraph: the detail of the immediate situation; a marriage on its last legs; the political situation in Canada; life itself. But just saying so does not connect them. This "she," a Canadian writer in her later forties named Nan Waterman Bobak, comes across more as a woman defined by her disconnections than by any strong qualities within herself. She is torn between the American city and the Canadian lake, tormented by rejections in her past, foreseeing the failure of her third marriage, fretting over her estrangement from her older son, and aware that her younger one will soon grow out of childhood. She is easy to understand, but harder to like, and she makes a weak core around which to build an entire novel.Hay does much better with Nan's son Jim, who is eleven when the novel opens. "And so it began, the outstanding summer of his childhood when he had two dogs and two happy women who wanted his company." So Chapter 4 begins, and continues with a passage about the boy and his dog that reminded me once again how well Elizabeth Hay has always been able to write: "Jim was never sure when to stop patting him. Even when he tired of it, he didn't want to hurt the dog's feelings and so he kept on. When finally he stopped, Pog lay down, not having wanted to hurt the boy's feelings either." Lovely! But be warned: Hay only sets up these dog relationships (there are three of them) as symbols of loss; not one of them will end happily.Is loss, then, a theme? I think so, but the book says much less about how to get beyond it. As we move deeper into a texture of loss and disappointment, the characters do not so much make decisions as do the best they can with reduced possibilities. Some least do pull through, and make some heartening repairs to their lives. But too much happens offstage, or between the acts, or in random walk-on appearances.The title comes from the very last page of the book, another passage of great beauty: "They went down to the water's edge and stood watching and listening. The leaves fell like rain. It was the weight of the hoarfrost, melting in the sun, that made them break away. His whole life Jim would remember the sound and so would Nan. […] And in their minds they would be back in this moment when everything was still -- there was no wind -- yet everything was changing." A truly lovely memory. And yet I would be hard put to say exactly what understanding Jim, his mother, or the reader have to take away from this moment of stillness-in-change, to carry into the whole of their remaining lives.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A Study in Schisms By Jill I. Shtulman Elizabeth Hay has long delighted and transported me with her work: the lost souls working together in a small Yellowknife radio station (Late Nights on Air), the two tempestuous sisters in the fairytale-like A Student of Weather, the interweaving of human relationships in Alone in the Classroom.This is a writer who has never been afraid of cross-fertilizing her style, creating that perfect hybrid of an intimate mastery of words with a splendor of vision and always focusing on the power of place and the power of the human voice. Needless to say, I was delighted to become an early reader of her newest work in exchange for an honest review.The theme of the book is the schisms that divide us and sometimes bring us together. Jim is an American boy who is torn between his Canadian mother Nan’s love of eastern Ontario and his dour father George’s desire to remain in New York City. As a young boy, Jim is constantly torn between life’s dichotomies: nature vs. urban life, hurt vs. forgiveness, independence vs. duty, life vs. death. All of this plays out against the backdrop of Quebec’s squeaky close 1995 referendum on sovereignty vs. unity, as a divided country held its breath.At times, the parallelisms between Jim’s life and the Quebec seemed a little too neatly telegraphed. Take this, for example, referring to Nan: “She wanted to feel more alive, that’s what she wanted. To live an independent and courageous life. And with that bracing thought something clicked in her brain and she understood Quebec. She understood a place torn between staying and leaving, and therefore always dissatisfied.”In other places, the book shines as it teases the reader with the rhythm and flow of natural and connective life. The rivalry of two brothers, a mother and oldest son estrangement, blended families that struggle to define their individual places, a sister and brother who can’t quite bring themselves to reconciliation, a complicated husband-wife marriage that becomes even more complicated when a best friend shows up…all of these are ordinary events and yet form a tapestry of life as it moves forward.For a great part of this novel, I was waiting for something to happen, a collision between characters that would result in something entirely life-transforming. It was only when I was into the beautifully-crafted last third of the book that I recalled the old adage: life happens within and without you. Indeed, as these characters navigate their competing loyalties, they recognize (to quote Four Quartets) that “the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” Jim’s life is not by any means complete, but in integral ways, he is whole.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. "What is the Worst thing you have ever done?" By bella79954 Received from netgalley in exchange for an honest review."What's the Worse thing you have ever done?"This novel begins when ten year old Jim and his Canadian mother, Nan, and American father, George, are on a road trip from New York City to visit his Mother's family at a lake in eastern Ontario during the late summer in the 1990's. Jim asks his parents the above question, "What is the worst thing you have ever done?" Each in turn answer him, but he does not want to share his own answer. He is silent and what he has done worries him. Throughout the book that theme comes up with various characters tell the worst thing they have ever done.After they return from their late summer trip, the family gets bad news and Jim and his Mother, Nan return to Ontario where her best friend Lulu makes an appearance and sticks around. Nan is unhappy in her Marriage and is estranged from her oldest son, and reconnecting with her friend and her old home seems to be just what she needs. Thus begins the novel. Jim is 17 when the book ends. He is a sweet and knowing child, sensitive and often appeared wise beyond his years.His Whole life is about the characters. This not a "nail biter" of a book, you will not be "on the edge of your seat", it is not a "bodice ripper" or a "page turner". It is a tender character driven book with many themes. At times a coming of age novel and a love story. A love story, in the sense, as it is a story about love between a Mother and child, between a husband and wife, a brother and sister, a boy and many dogs, and love between friends. This book is also about loss.The struggles in Jim's life, county vs. city, Mother vs. father, also reflect the struggle within Quebec at the time of the 1995 referendum of independence.As I was reading this book, I could visualize everything. The writing was very descriptive and beautiful. There are so many passages in the book that I loved. Here is one of the first that I thought was touching "Jim was never sure when to stop patting him. Even when he tired of it, he didn't want to hurt the dog's feelings and so he kept on. When finally he stopped, Pog lay down, not having wanted to hurt the boy's feelings either." This book felt like a small independent movie to me. One made out of love.A very enjoyable read. Not a fast read. A read to be read over some time. Slow and lazy like a warm Canadian Summer. That is not to mean it is a boring book. It is not. But this is not a book to be rushed. It is a book to be savored. The writer is so gifted. The phrases and sentences are quite beautiful. At times I wondered if this Author also wrote poetry. As I stated above, this is a character driven book. Jim and Lulu were my favorite characters in the book."They went down to the water's edge and stood watching and listening. The leaves fell like rain. It was the weight of the hoarfrost, melting in the sun, that made them break away. His whole life Jim would remember the sound and so would Nan"
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