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Jane Hamilton, award-winning author of The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World, is back in top form with a richly textured novel about a tragic accident and its effects on two generations of a family.When Aaron Maciver's beautiful young wife, Madeline, suffers brain damage in a bike accident, she is left with the intellectual powers of a six-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 with Madeline and his cousin Buddy in Wisconsin through the Vietnam War, through Mac's years as a husband with children of his own, and through Buddy's involvement with the subsequent Gulf Wars. Jane Hamilton, with her usual humor and keen observations of human relationships, deftly explores the Maciver's unusual situation and 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 she exposes the role that past relationships, rivalries, and regrets inevitably play in the lives of adults. Inspired in part by Elizabeth Spencer's Light in the Piazza, Hamilton offers an honest and exquisite portrait of how a family tragedy forever shapes and alters the boundaries of love.
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Previews available in: English
Showing 5 featured editions. View all 5 editions?
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1
When Madeline Was Young
September 4, 2007, Anchor
Paperback
in English
- Reprint edition
1400096995 9781400096992
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3
When Madeline Was Young: A Novel
September 26, 2006, Random House Inc (T)
Hardcover
in English
- Lrg edition
0739326953 9780739326954
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5
When Madeline Was Young
2006, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Electronic resource
in English
0385519982 9780385519984
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- Created June 18, 2010
- 4 revisions
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July 29, 2012 | Edited by VacuumBot | Updated format 'electronic resource' to 'Electronic resource' |
April 25, 2011 | Edited by OCLC Bot | Added OCLC numbers. |
June 19, 2010 | Edited by ImportBot | Added new cover |
June 18, 2010 | Created by ImportBot | Imported from marc_overdrive MARC record |