Rating: 
Summary: Oedipus Re(du)x
Review: "Disobedience", Jane Hamilton's searing new novel, has more than a passing resemblence to "Oedipus Rex". Henry Shaw, 17 going on 45, discovers his mother's email love affair with a man other than his father and seeks to observe and deconstruct the affair. His analysis of his mother's public and private behavior makes up much of this absorbing novel, but because this is the author of "Map of the World" you can be sure there will be more than a few other developments before the complex and heartbreaking book comes to a close. Only an accomplished writer can pull off a narrative like this one: we come to know Beth Shaw, Henry's mother, only through her son's eyes and the content of her email. Can we trust either of these sources to complete a full portrait of this woman? I think not, and yet Beth's ambiguity is one of the novel's main accomplishments. She is portrayed as both a fierce and uninvolved parent, a loving and deceptive wife and a complex and incomplete woman. We are as intrigued and confused as her son. "Disobedience" is one of the best books I have read this year. Anyone who loved "Map of the World" will love this one too.
Rating: 
Summary: A stray from Jane Hamilton's usual
Review: I loved The Book of Ruth and Map of the World...I love Jane Hamilton's writing style, thoughtfulness and throughness. Disobedience was nothing like her past novels. I had a hard time getting through it. I found the civil war reinactment very odd....actually the whole book was odd. It ends with somnewhat of a meaning. I didn't finish it unsatisfied, just mystified as to how Jane Hamilton came up with such an odd plot. It didn't reach me as her other novels have. (I have not read Short History of a Prince...though at this point I think I am afraid to). Good luck to those who try and get through this novel...
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining author, mediocre book
Review: Many authors have tried to write in a gender other than their own and have been successful to varying degrees...Jane Hamilton just doesn't seem to make it in her first person rendition of a 17 year old male's angst and disbelief at the discovery of his mother's cyberaffair...the characters here are unbelieveable and unengaging...Elvira's obsession with Civil War anachronism is cute, but seems to be very peripheral to the central theme of the book (Henry's introduction to the world of parental dalliance). Hamilton has a knack with words, and her writing is entertaining and at times thought provoking, but this novel seems to have been created on a thread of an idea that never seemed to become woven into a fabric.
Rating:
Summary: An exquisite, well presented, and sensitive story!
Review: 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 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 scapeges 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 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 pyschological action never lets up until the the last page is read.
Rating:
Summary: Nearly Letter Perfect Tale Of Cyber Betrayal
Review: It's awe-inspiring, the range of things it is possible to learn about your fellow man through the good offices of the World Wide Web. A map of the route to someone's house? Click. A rundown of someone's previous addresses and spending habits? Click, click. A boy can even find out about his mother's extramarital affair, as Henry Shaw does in this wonderfully haunting fourth novel from Ms. Hamilton. Reading someone else's e-mail is a quiet, clean enterprise: no smudge of ink, no greasy thumbprint left behind. It could be the work of a ghost. It is, in fact, the work of 17-year-old Henry, the story's sardonic, trying-to-be-detached narrator, who inadvertently learns of the relationship between "Liza38" and "Rpoll", e-mail monikers for his pianist mother, Elizabeth, and fellow musician Richard Polloco. Henry's obsession with this liaison is paralleled by his 13-year-old sister Elvira's fanaticism about the Civil War. Elvira dresses only in period costume and shows up at battle reenactments outfitted as a boy. This is a perfect paradigm for Disobedience, which is all about loyalties and disguises, and is also, at bottom, a provocative story of a family divided against itself.
Rating: 
Summary: A Year of Disobedience
Review: It is not often that you come across a novel dealing with mother/son relationships, and told from the voice of the son, at that. Jane Hamilton presents a picture of the year in the life of the Shaw family, the year in which 17 year old Henry finds out about his mother's infidelity with a Russian-American violin maker. Henry becomes obsessed with the relationship, downloading and copying each e-mail message and putting it in a file. While the narrative takes place a few years down the road (Henry is probably now in his mid-twenties) the reader gets the immediate impression that Henry has NOT worked through his problems with this. He has told the story to many women, friends as well as lovers. He has used the letters in a film project. He has told and retold the story but seems to be searching for absolution or understanding somehow in this, the ultimate telling of his seventeenth year. Although he acknowledges that his father is the real hero that taught him about what it realy means to love someone, it is still his mother's story that won't leave him. Themes of virtuality run throughout the story. Re-enactments, replicas, re-inventions, and rememberances populate the novel. Elvira, Henry's sister and a Civil War re-enactor, lives for the "magic moment," when literal time falls away and she believes herself to be actually inhabiting the period of battle. Many in the novel (and in life) are living for the same. Perhaps it is why Henry must tell the tale over and over again, as a means to re-visit that time as closely as possible. It was also the year that he connected with the music of Kurt Cobain, fell in love and experienced sexual pleasure for the first time. It was the very best and worst of times for Henry, who was not quite a boy, not yet a man, and not as useful as a dog. Hamilton does an excellent job of writing in the persona of a 17 year old gen-xer. Almost TOO good of a job, as at times Henry comes across as absolutely merciless in his shrewd observations and criticisms of those around him, especially his mother. He also seems imcapable of empathy, which is very apparent in the aftermath of Elvira's attack by the other Civil War re-enactors who realize that she is a girl in hiding. One of the things I enjoyed about the novel were the rich cast of characters outside of Henry's family, such as the womens' book group that served as a Greek chorus for the events taking place in the novel. Henry's gothic chick friend, Karen (I would love to read more about her. I can only imagine reading her award winning poem "Shiloh Mist") and Elvira's loud mouthed friend Hilare have more to do with the action of the novel than one might think. Perhaps the most finely drawn character is his mother's lover Richard Polloco, whose stunning e-mail messages could easily win him the honor of poet laureate. Ultimately I have to wonder - what good has telling this story done for the narrator? Throughout the looping narrative Henry's mission still does not come clear. He doesn't seem to be searching for greater understanding of his mother's motives or of his own, during the year of familial "disobedience." It irks me that he doesn't ever feel remorse for invading his mother's privacy that way, for violating her trust. He doesn't seem to have a greater perpective on things as an adult than he did as a teen. In the end he is a flawed narrator telling a complicated tale that yields no easy answers. The telling of the story is exquisitely done, the characters are full and complex, there is humor and sadness,and a host of themes to mull over at length. I enjoy Jane Hamilton's fiction precisely because there are no pat, easy answers or trite sentiments to be found. The "marriage" of Henry and his mother is not an easy one to define or describe. I would suspect that to be true of most parent/child relationships. The point is that we continue on, despite the implosion of family dynamics. We show up every day, though we are forever changed.
Rating:
Summary: unremarkable take on fascinating topic
Review: Starting from when the narrator mentioned that long hair (on a male) was considered unusual at his bleeding heart liberal school, the majority of "Disobedience" rang false for me. A novel dealing with how the Net has shaped infidelity should be an intriguing read - I haven't seen too many books on it - but this wasn't one of them. Fictional teenagers don't have to be portrayed as rebellious, tormented loners, but Henry seemed too far in the other direction, he appeared to have amazingly few conflicts (apart from the major one). I found it odd that so little was mentioned about college, considering that is one of the highlights of most high school seniors' year. Yes, his mother was having an affair, but didn't he have any separate plans of his own? I agree with those reviewers who said Elvira was the most fascinating character in the book. Perhaps because there seem to be so few vividly drawn adolescent females in contemporary fiction, she was the one who kept me skimming, at least until I found out what happened to her. After that I closed the book.
Rating:
Summary: a wonderful author
Review: Ms Hamilton is one of my favorite authors and I was so pleased to see she had written another book. be sure to read all her books, you will not be disappointed. In this book the character of Henry keeps reminding me of Holden Caulfield from the Catcher in the Rye. he is trying to understand his mother, but his confusion shows when we see him referring to her as either Beth, mom,Liza38 or Mrs. Shaw. I love the character of his sister, Elvira, her independence is refreshing. poor dad, is he going to find out just what Liza38 is up to?
Rating: 
Summary: I'll try it again later . . . .
Review: I tried very hard to finish this book but couldn't stop asking myself "who cares?" with each page I turned. After one hundred-fifty pages of labored reading, I gave up. This novel simply failed to engage me on any level, (save for the familiarity Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood provides) although the story line has great potential. Elvira is by far the most interesting of the characters but the story doesn't center on her and her minor role was not enough to keep me reading. I recommended this book to a friend as a joint reading experience and she disliked the novel equally. I'm surprised and dismayed at yet another boring novel by Hamilton. Between Disobedience and Map of the World (bad book, equally bad movie), I'm afraid that one of my all time favorite authors has started to produce mediocre novels that will sell based on the author's name recognition alone. Perhaps after being blessed by Oprah twice, the author feels she doesn't need to focus on the story as much as the publicity to sell it. The Book of Ruth and The Short History of a Prince are by far Hamilton's best work in my opinion. For a better view of this author's talents, I'd highly recommend reading both.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointingly detached
Review: Being a huge Jane Hamilton fan, I have to admit I was disappointed with Disobedience, in no small part to the detached, third-party view of the characters through the eyes of Henry, a world-weary and not terribly insightful teenager (which in my opinion, he should be, if he is going to be telling the story). I also found quite tedious the numerous ways Henry refers to his mother, ranging from "mom" to "Mrs. Shaw" to "Beth" to her "Liza38", her e-mail screen name. These references are used interchangeably and frequently, using up to three of these monikers in a single paragraph! Not sure what the point is of this particular literary device. I never really understood the motivations of any of the characters, thus could not sympathize with them. Also, events in the book evolve without a sense of how much time has elapsed between them, so context is lost. Would have appreciated at least alternating chapters in different characters voices to get their perspective on events.
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