His Whole Life

Elizabeth Hay

Feb 2018 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Susan Coyne

About this audiobook

"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.

About the author

ELIZABETH HAY is the Giller Prize-winning author of six novels, including Late Nights on Air, His Whole Life, and A Student of Weather. Her memoir All Things Consoled won the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction; her story collection Small Change was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. A former radio broadcaster, she spent a number of years in Mexico and New York City, and makes her home in Ottawa.

SUSAN COYNE is an award-winning actor and writer, best known for her work as a co-creator and star of the acclaimed TV series, Slings and Arrows. As an actor, she has appeared on stages across Canada including several seasons at the Stratford Festival. As a writer, she has adapted major works by Chekhov and Turgenev for the stage, as well as her own childhood memoir, Kingfisher Days. Her first feature film, The Man Who Invented Christmas, was released in 2017. Currently, she is a writer and producer on Amazon’s award-winning series, Mozart in the Jungle. Susan is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada, a founding member of Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre Company, and a member of the Order of Canada.