Vendor
	Liepman Literary Agency Marc Koralnik
Original language
English
Weblink
http://www.elizabethhay.com

HIS WHOLE LIFE

Elizabeth Hay

From the #1 nationally bestselling, Giller Prize-winning author of LATE NIGHTS ON AIR and ALONE IN THE CLASSROOM, comes an irresistible new novel that has everything we would hope for from this celebrated author -- and more.

Starting with something as simple as a boy who wants a dog, His Whole Life takes us into a rich and intimate world where everything that matters is at risk: family, nature, country, home.

At the outset, ten-year-old Jim and his Canadian mother and American father are on a car journey from New York City to a lake in eastern Ontario during the last hot days of August. What follows is an enveloping story that spans a few pivotal years of his youth and sets out competing claims on everyone's love: for Canada over New York; for a mother over a father; a friend over a husband; one son over another. With her trademark honesty, vivid sense of place, and nuanced characters, Hay deftly charts the deepening bond between mother and son as a marriage falters and the family threatens to come apart.

Set in the mid-1990s, when Quebec was on the verge of leaving Canada, this is a coming-of-age story as only Elizabeth Hay could tell it. With grace and power she probes 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.

http://www.elizabethhay.com

Available products
Book Published by McClelland and Stewart

Comments

"After eight books, a couple of Governor General's Literary Award nominations, and a Scotiabank Giller Prize (for 2007's Late Nights on Air) to her credit, readers have come to expect a certain level of excellence from Hay, and fans of her previous work will be well satisfied with this latest effort. Hay's prose is as fluid and surprising as ever. Settings come alive through her signature combination of poetry and simplicity."

"It is all so true true to human nature and families and life. His Whole Life is about a boy growing up, but in it readers will find themes, musings and quotes that resonate and strike home with their accuracy and insight. His Whole Life is a lovely novel."

"While there's plenty to sink your teeth into it's Hay's perceptive writing that shines brightest. There's something magical in the descriptions of the family lake house in Ontario that Nan, George and Jim visit from their home in New York every year. The place takes on a mythic status His Whole Life offers a perspective about what it means to be Canadian in our political history and romantic, wild habitats. Archetypal stories, yes, but compelling ones."

"Gorgeous Her best yet."

"HIS WHOLE LIFE is a moving reflection on nationhood and the evolution of an unbreakable mother-son bond. It inspires deeper questions of loyalty, forgiveness and maturity and reassures us that growing up doesn't always have to mean growing away."

"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."