A Hundred Small Lessons

October 1, 2017

With the creak of worn wooden stairs and whispers on the breeze blowing through the jacaranda trees, a house in Brisbane, Australia, welcomes its new, young owners while bidding farewell to the woman who'd lived there for more than 60 years. After raising her family, 89-year-old Elsie Gormley is moved to a nursing center upon suffering dementia. Lucy Kiss and Ben Carter and their toddler, Tom, move into Elsie's house, where they weather the growing pains of being parents. This contemplative novel (Hay's third after The Railway Man's Wife and The Body in the Clouds) explores the emotions of saying goodbye to a life of familiarity and embracing the unknown. It takes us through the complex relationships between parent and child and ever-shifting struggle of motherhood and examines the fear and courage that are rooted in shedding the past and looking forward to the future. VERDICT Readers who loved the quiet introspection of Anita Shreve's The Pilot's Wife and Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge will enjoy the detailed emotional journeys of Hay's characters. Their stories will linger long after the final page is turned.--Kirsche Romo, Duncanville, TX

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October 1, 2017
If home is where the heart is, when does a house become a home--or, conversely, stop being one? Two women struggle to find the answer.Soon after Lucy Kiss, her husband, Ben, and their baby, Tom, move from Sydney to Brisbane, Lucy's original enthusiasm sours as she struggles to find her footing in less-familiar surroundings while adjusting to the demands of full-time motherhood. Lucy is interested in learning about the house's former owner, elderly Elsie Gormley, who lived there all her married life and decades more after her husband died. Elsie's children have moved her to a nearby nursing home--and sold the house to Lucy and Ben--but Elsie's memory still takes her home in her mind. And perhaps she actually wanders there, or so Lucy suspects. Lucy's fascination grows as she discovers photos left in the attic. She begins to feel Elsie's presence and see footprints on the damp lawn in the morning, much to Ben's chagrin. And Elsie seems equally interested in the new occupants of her former house. Her aging memories give the book a timeless sense of marriage and motherhood and perhaps a flicker of what Lucy may find in her future. The home that Elsie must give up with regret, Lucy must learn to love. This is typical of Hay (The Railwayman's Wife, 2013, etc.), who slowly weaves a tale of past and present lives, exploring the sense that the gap between the two women is not impervious to sensitive souls. Both Elsie and Lucy are finely and sympathetically drawn, and their lives highlight issues that affect many women.A cerebral tale, slow-moving but profound.

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October 30, 2017
Hay’s engaging third novel (after The Railwayman’s Wife) explores the lives of two women connected by a house. In Brisbane, Australia, Lucy Kiss; her husband, Ben; and their young son, Tom, have just moved into the home where Elsie Gormley lived for more than 60 years. Elsie’s children decided that it was time for her to move to a nursing home because of a recent fall after which she lay helpless on the floor for hours. Through flashbacks, Hay recounts Elsie’s life with her husband, Clem, and twins Don and Elaine. Elsie’s memories are cleverly juxtaposed against Lucy’s early motherhood, and though Lucy has traveled the world with her husband as he changed jobs and Elsie lived in Brisbane her entire married life, the similarities in the two women’s lives gradually come to the forefront. Hay’s perceptive prose illuminates both Elsie’s and Lucy’s lives, resulting in a rich dual character study that spans generations.