His Whole Life
"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:…
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.