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    Disobedience
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    Disobedience
    Unavailable
    Disobedience
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    Disobedience

    Written by Jane Hamilton

    Narrated by Robert Sean Leonard

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From Jane Hamilton, author of the beloved New York Times bestsellers A Map of the World and The Book of Ruth, comes a warmly humorous, poignant novel about a young man, his mother's e-mail, and the often surprising path of infidelity.

    Henry Shaw, a high school senior, is about as comfortable with his family as any seventeen-year-old can be. His father, Kevin, teaches history with a decidedly socialist tinge at the Chicago private school Henry and his sister attend. His mother, Beth, who plays the piano in a group specializing in antique music, is a loving, attentive wife and parent. Henry even accepts the offbeat behavior of his thirteen-year-old sister, Elvira, who is obsessed with Civil War reenactments and insists on dressing in handmade Union uniforms at inopportune times.

    When he stumbles on his mother's e-mail account, however, Henry realizes that all is not as it seems. There, under the name Liza38, a name that Henry innocently established for her, is undeniable evidence that his mother is having an affair with one Richard Polloco, a violin maker and unlikely paramour who nonetheless has a very appealing way with words and a romantic spirit that, in Henry's estimation, his own father woefully lacks.

    Against his better judgment, Henry charts the progress of his mother's infatuation, her feelings of euphoria, of guilt, and of profound, touching confusion. His knowledge of Beth's secret life colors his own tentative explorations of love and sex with the ephemeral Lily, and casts a new light on the arguments-usually focused on Elvira-in which his parents regularly indulge. Over the course of his final year of high school, Henry observes each member of the family, trying to anticipate when they will find out about the infidelity and what the knowledge will mean to each of them.

    Henry's observations, set down ten years after that fateful year, are much more than the "old story" of adultery his mother deemed her affair to be. With her inimitable grace and compassion, Jane Hamilton has created a novel full of gentle humor and rich insights into the nature of love and the deep, mysterious bonds that hold families together.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 17, 2000
    ISBN9780553753226
    Unavailable
    Disobedience
    Author

    Jane Hamilton

    Jane Hamilton lives, works, and writes in an orchard farmhouse in Rochester, Wisconsin.

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    Reviews for Disobedience

    3.5/5

    186 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Wow. Reading this book reminded me of why I like Jane Hamilton's writing so much. This is the story of a family, narrated by the teenage son, Henry. Henry has just discovered that his mother is having an affair, and this affects his relationship with her. Throughout the book, he sometimes refers to his mother as Beth, as Mrs. Shaw or as Liza to reflect the different aspects of her life or personality, as he perceives it. He is, in fact, coming to see his mother as a person beyond being "Mom". Add a sister who pretends to be a boy in order to participate in civil war re-enactments and an almost pathologically optimistic, oblivious father and this story takes you into a world where Henry learns about secrets, hidden strengths and the complex issues of who we really are.
    • 3/5
      The Shaws may live in the present day, but they are all stuck in the past. They are active "re-enacters" of the Civil War ... but more importantly they are all "enacting" their every day lives.
    • 4/5
      Most people don't really like this book, which is about a family with some unusual and unlikeable behaviours. Even if people do like some aspects of the book, they almost always don't find the family attractive or even realistic. I liked the book because I looked at the family and found it was like looking in a mirror. What does that say about myself and my family?
    • 5/5
      Henry Shaw is seventeen and a high school senior. Even though he has had a rather unusual and carefree childhood in rural Vermont, he considers himself part of an ordinary and happy family. It is only after he moves with his family to Chicago that he discovers, through inadvertently accessing his mother’s email, that she is in love with a man other than his father. Should Henry confront her or must he suffer silently? His new knowledge of his mother’s behavior is a burden for Henry. While he agonizes over this, his parents seem to be quietly waging their own war over Elvira, Henry’s younger sister, who is slowly become a living re-enactment of a Civil War soldier.Disobedience is a novel of modern times and yet of an old problem. It focuses on a high-tech way of not only conducting, but also monitoring, a less than desirable relationship. The characters are so authentic that at least one of them is sure to be reminiscent of a real life person! Hamilton does the voice of Henry so well that it’s hard to realize that he is a fictional character and not a real young man struggling with a terrible family problem. All of the characters are graced with passion and humor which shine through the pages. Hamilton highlights the way in which one particular family scapegoats a particularly vulnerable family member. Often this happens in real life--the act of scapegoating--even though family problems are often system problems, those having to do with relationships between family members. Although some readers may view Elvira’s antics as humorous, they are quite the opposite. In this story, Elvira suffers a great deal of torment from her mother and brother for an interest in which she has a great passion. Hamilton brings great insight into family relationships and into a teenager’s way of thinking. Teens often think they have things figured out, but they don’t have enough life experience to truly understand complex situations. Some readers may be put off by the slow-moving the plot, but the psychological action never lets up until the last page is read.
    • 5/5
      Henry Shaw is a high school senior who, at seventeen years old, is about as comfortable with his family as any teenager can be. His father, Kevin, teaches history with a decidedly socialist tinge at the Chicago private school Henry and his sister attend. His mother, Beth, who plays the piano in a group specializing in antique music, is a loving, attentive wife and parent. Henry even accepts the offbeat behavior of his thirteen-year-old sister, Elvira, who is obsessed with Civil War reenactments and insists on dressing in handmade Union uniforms at inopportune times.When he stumbles on his mother's email account, however, Henry realizes that all is not as it seems. There, under the screen name Liza38, a name Henry innocently established for her, is undeniable evidence that his mother is having an affair with one Richard Polloco, a violin maker and unlikely paramour who nonetheless has a very appealing way with words and a romantic spirit that, in Henry's estimation, his father woefully lacks. Against his better judgement, Henry charts the progress of his mother's infatuation with Richard - her feelings of euphoria, of guilt, and of profound, touching confusion. His knowledge of Beth's secret life colors his own tentative explorations of love and sex with the ephemeral Lily, and casts a new light on the arguments - usually focused on Elvira - in which his parents routinely indulge. Over the course of his final year in high school, Henry observes each member of the family, trying to anticipate when they will find out about the infidelity and what that knowledge will mean to each of them. Henry's observations, set down a decade after that fateful year, are so much more than the "old story" that his mother deemed her affair to be.I thought that this book was just okay - to my mind, the story could have been told more simply, without such intense focus being paid to Elvira's obsession about the Civil War. Disobedience by Jane Hamilton wasn't perhaps my favorite book of all time, but I am certainly still interested in reading more books by Jane Hamilton. I give Disobedience by Jane Hamilton an A!
    • 5/5
      Every time I read one of Jane Hamilton's books I love her writing even more. Who else can wrap you into a world, defining people so clearly that you expect to look around and see them at the coffee shop? "It was possibly because he had no ego that he was more fully himself than anyone else I could name."
    • 3/5
      Despite being narrated by a teenage boy, this feels like a woman's book, heavy on relationships and family dynamics. Hamilton's writing is polished and highly readable, sometimes ingenious and truly funny. I appreciated the extended Civil War metaphor, and Elvira's/Elvirnon's part in it. Ultimately, though, I didn't feel the characters deeply enough to make me want to rush back to their story.
    • 1/5
      I have been a Hamilton fan since "Map of the World," but I was very disappointed in this book. The characters were not realistic, despite an intriguing and viable premise. I thought the adolescent's son voice was stilted and the parents too weak to elicit the reader's empathy or interest. I didn't like any of the characters and forced myself to finish the book, hoping for a meaningful resolution, which never came.