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Type of bind: Audio CD
EAN num: 9781428112919
ISBN number: 142811291X
Label: Recorded Books
Manufacturer: Recorded Books
Quantity: 9
Page Count: 9
Printing Date: June 30, 2007
Publishing house: Recorded Books
Sale Popularity Level: 1268329
Studio: Recorded Books
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
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 humour 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.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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I recently finished reading When Madeline Was Young, by Jane Hamilton. I've read a few of Hamilton's books before - A Map of the World (which I was rather ambivalent about) and The Book of Ruth (which I thought was wonderful) - so I figured it was time to pick her up again.
The novel hinges on Hamilton's deft sketch of the Maciver family. Our narrator's father, Aaron, an intellectual fellow from a good family, marries the beautiful Madeline, a statuesque blonde with a penchant for fashion. Everything is going along swimmingly in their new-married lives until Madeline suffers head trauma during a bicycle accident, leaving her with the mental capacity of a 7-year-old.
With Madeline's own parents at too much of a loss to care for her, this duty falls to Aaron and his aging mother. Soon, however, another woman enters the picture - solid, smart, gentle Julia. Over time, Aaron and Julia fall in love. What to do? The two arrange for Mac to divorce Madeline and marry Julia, and then Julia and Mac care tenderly for Madeline as if she were one of their own children. Aaron and Julia go on to have their own children (of which Mac, our narrator, is one) and live full lives together against the backdrop of the coming Vietnam War.
Characterization in this book is wonderful, and I liked Hamilton's basic premise - What happens after tragedy? And not just in the initial months, but in the long years thereafter, when the grind of constant care and eternal watchfulness drags a bit? How do people piece their lives together in the face of such responsibilities?
Hamilton freely admits that this book was inspired by Spencer's A Light in the Piazza (which I have been meaning to read for months). Now that I've finished this tome, I plan on getting Spencer's short novel at the library during my subsequent trip.
Rated by buyers 
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The writing and timeline of this book did not bother me the way that other reviewers have commented, but I do agree with the statements that having the story told soley from Mac's point of view is a disservice. To me, the intriguing part of this family's situation would've been explored much more thoroughly from Aaron and/or Julia's point of view. Madeline's would've been fine as well -- but we didn't get any of those.
Rated by buyers -
I have so wanted to love this book. I have tried and tried, but in its complications and decade-encompassing scope, it loses its focus. I am a great admirer of Jane Hamilton; her language is always clear and provocative, but these characters, though compelling, just cannot hold this story together. Perhaps using our iconic war, Vietnam, to comment on the Gulf wars, was just too much of a stretch. I await her subsequent book with hope.
Rated by buyers 
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Jane Hamilton is a great Literary author. The only author I've read whose prose had a greater scent of 'America' was John Steinbeck's. Her exposition of characters has no gender boundaries whatsoever. Her earlier novels happened to be mostly either about women, or in 'The Short History of a Prince', a homosexual male. Her portrayal of Howard in 'A Map of the World' was mostly from a female perspective, though the short section in which he is alone feels like the training ground from which this book, 'When Madeline Was Young', came. This is her very first novel that deals primarily throughout its entirety on male issues, a large one of which is understanding females. The reason Madeline's story has such a large factor so as to be the very title, is that it is the story from which his understanding (or non-understanding) of women, firstly his mother, comes.
'When Madeline Was Young' is rich with variety. It touches on politics, war, family, and the very nature of what it is to be adult. It is a Great book. Great books are not easy reads. Great books do not focus on the same stereotypes and circumstances that its target demographic audience understands. Great authors write books that continually push the limits of their 'genre' setting. Jane Hamilton no longer fits neatly between Debbie Macomber and Nicholas Sparks. If you took a moment to look at her previous novels more carefully, you'd see that she never did.
Rated by buyers -
Like others reporting here, I did not understand how the author or publisher could come up with the title. Madeline did have a central role in the book; she was the maypole around which all the other danced, but we really don't see her when she was young or know much about her from others.
The real problem in the book was that it was told from a single point of view--Mac's. I believe it would have been much more satisfying to tell the story from various points of view, particularly Madeline, before the accident, and then Aaron's when he and Julia were very first married without children of their own. It would have made the book much more layered and rich.
I do have to say though that I really liked the character of Mikey O'Day but when it came to his parents, I think the narrator tried too hard to analyze their motives. Their actions spoke loud enough for most readers.
Figgy was a good character but I would have liked to see her through Buddy's eyes to understand her feelings and actions.
But the mystery of Julia and Aaron stayed with me long after the book ended.
An interesting premise.
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