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.

The bestselling author of A Map of the World and The Book of Ruth serves up an entirely different kind of novel: Le Divorce meets The Love Letter.

Married for 12 years, Laura and Charlie Rider have come to share almost everything: their nursery business, their love for their animals, and, most especially, their zeal for storytelling. And though they no longer share a bed, they are happy enough continuing along in their pleasant, platonic routine. Then Charlie begins an email exchange in earnest with Jenna Faroli, the host of a popular radio show, and, according to Laura, “the single most famous person in the town.” Seeing her opportunity, Laura cannot resist using Charlie’s new connection to promote her writing skills, and together, the couple crafts florid, strangely intimate messages that entice Jenna into their game. “The Project,” as they come to call it, quickly spins out of control. As the lines between Laura’s words and Charlie’s feelings become blurred, Jenna finds herself effected in ways most disturbing, while Laura is transformed into an artist of the highest caliber–in her own mind. The end results are hilarious and poignant, and for Laura Rider, beyond even her wildest imagination.

“I learned slowly, that if you don’t look at the world with perfect vision, you ‘re bound to get yourself cooked “

Having come within an inch of her life, Ruth Dahl is determined to take a good look at it — to figure out whether, in fact, she’s to blame for the mess.

Pegged the loser in a small-town family that doesn’t have much going for it in the first place, Ruth grows up in the shadow of her brilliant brother, trying to hold her own in a world of poverty and hard edges. Matt’s brain is his ticket out of Honey Creek. Ruth, without options, cleaves instead to her tough, half-crazy mother, May, and eventually to Ruby, the sweet but slightly deranged young man she loves, marries, and supports. When the precarious household erupts in violence, Ruth is the only one who can piece their story together — and she gets at the truth in a manner at once ferocious, hilarious, and heartbreaking.

In this powerful, incandescent novel, Jane Hamilton has worked a miracle: she has given voice to a young woman you have passed on the street a thousand times. Perhaps you have never noticed her, hut the next time you see her, you will know who she is.

Passionate in her commitment to life, Ruth is a stunning testament to the human capacity for mercy, compassion, and love. THE BOOK OF RUTH is a magnificent audio experience.

Copyright © 1997 by Jane Hamilton

Performance copyright 1997 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Award-winning author Jane Hamilton touched readers’ hearts with her emotionally-charged novel, A Map of the World. She intimately involves her readers, again, with The Book of Ruth, winner of the PEN/Ernest Hemingway Award. Growing up in a world of physical and emotional poverty, Ruth believes her shrewish mother’s assessment of her-that she is dimwitted and worthless. When she marries an emotionally unstable ne’er-do-well, her troubles only multiply. Her job at the dry cleaners can’t afford her little family the luxury of moving out of her mother’s house. As the incessant bickering between her troubled husband and her abusive mother reaches a violent climax, Ruth must find a way to survive. Angela Jayne Rogers’ sensitive narration brings to life the enduring wisdom, compassion, and strength of this innocent but battered soul. The Book of Ruth shines as a bittersweet testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

When Aaron Maciver’s beautiful young wife, Madeline, suffers brain damage in a bike accident, she is left with the intellectual powers of a seven-year-old. In the years that follow, Aaron and his second wife care for Madeline with deep tenderness and devotion as they raise two children of their own. Narrated by Aaron’s son Mac, When Madeline Was Young chronicles the Maciver family through the decades, from Mac’s childhood growing up in Wisconsin with Madeline and his cousin Buddy, through the Vietnam War, his years as a husband with children of his own, and his cousin’s involvement in the subsequent Gulf Wars. Jane Hamilton, with not only her usual keen observations of human relationships but also her humor, deftly explores the Macivers’ unusual situation as she examines notions of childhood (through Mac and Buddy’s actual youth as well as Madeline’s infantilization) and a rivalry between Buddy’s and Mac’s families that spans decades and various wars. She captures the pleasures and frustrations of marriage and family and exposes the role that past relationships, rivalries, and regrets inevitably play in the lives of adults. Inspired in part by Elizabeth Spencer’s The Light in the Piazza, Hamilton offers an honest, exquisite portrait of how a family tragedy forever shapes and alters the boundaries of love.