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. ( )

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. ( )

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. ( )

J'ai été déçu par ce roman de Jane Hamilton. Ses deux premiers livres (The Map of the World et The Book of Ruth) racontaient une inéluctable descente aux enfers familiale digne de W. Faulkner. Cette fois-ci, c'est plutôt tout le monde il est beau tout le monde il est gentil. Tout cela est raconté lentement, sans à-coup et il faut un peu se forcer pour tourner la page jusqu'à la fin. Un aspect a cependant retenu mon attention : la description de ces fans de la Guerre de Sécession qui revivent les grandes batailles du passé, jouant en grandeur nature et sur le terrain les épisodes célèbres. J'ai aussitôt pensé à ce gendarme fanatique des guerres napoléoniennes que j'ai rencontré en 1998 ou 1999 et qui attendait avec impatience de revivre les grandes batailles de Napoléon au moment de leur centième anniversaire. ( )

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! ( )