His Whole Life Audiobook By Elizabeth Hay cover art

His Whole Life

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

His Whole Life

By: Elizabeth Hay
Narrated by: Susan Coyne
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $15.30

Buy for $15.30

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

"Hay is a wise and astute observer of adolescence. . . . His Whole Life is a moving reflection on nationhood and the evolution of an unbreakable mother-son bond." The Globe and Mail

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 is at risk: family, nature, country, 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 an enveloping story that spans a few pivotal years of Jim's 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, wisdom, vivid sense of place, and nuanced characters, Hay deftly charts the deepening bond between mother and son even as the family threatens to come apart.
Set in the mid-1990s, when Quebec was on the verge of leaving Canada, this captivating novel is an unconventional coming-of-age story as only Elizabeth Hay could tell it. With grace and power, she 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.

©2015 Elizabeth Hay (P)2018 Emblem Editions
Coming of Age Family Life Fiction Literary Fiction New York
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

2015, Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, Finalist

2016, Canadian Authors Association Literary Award, Short-listed

"[She has an] evocative grace that brings to mind Annie Proulx." (Washington Post)

"Hay is a wise and astute observer of adolescence...His Whole Life is a moving reflection on nationhood and the evolution of an unbreakable mother-son bond." (The Globe and Mail)

What listeners say about His Whole Life

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 1 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 1 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 1 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.