The Hypocrite

A renowned playwright father. A daughter debuting a play of her own. Little does the father know that he is the focus of his daughter’s new play and that all of his failings will be put on display for the world to see. As the father sits—quite uncomfortably—and watches his daughter’s play, Hamya (Three Rooms) transports listeners back to the time in which the play’s events took place, during a father-daughter seaside summer vacation in Sicily. It’s there, off the coast of Italy, where the daughter engages with a local boy her age, where the father has several dalliances, and where, ultimately, the two increasingly fail to see eye-to-eye. As the novel comes to an amusing final scene—the father balancing a coffee he was forced to buy in order to use the restroom, while his daughter calls nonstop to discuss what he thought of the play—both daughter and father are forced to examine their hypocrisies up front. Narrator Claire Kinson does an excellent job navigating between time periods and capturing the irony of it all.