Home: A Novel

I am not going to repeat the plot, since many other reviewers have done so very competently. First let me say I am a Robinson fan. I think Gilead is one of the top ten books I have ever read. So imagine my disappointment when I finally found myself on the last page of Home, and closed the book with utter relief.

I believe that in Home, Robinson lost the writer's discipline she exercised so marvelously in Gilead. The characters never come to life. Jack is a kind of under-stated caricature of the "black-sheep" trying to redeem himself. I did not find him believable. He seemed to be another Ames/Boughten lightly clothed in the garb of a sinner. He was too decent, apologetic, and insightful to be any kind of black-sheep I have ever met. Glory is a caricature of the left-behind woman. She is allegedly intelligent and educated, and yearns for a different life, but for some reason is paralyzed and incapacitated. Both Jack and Glory seem almost embalmed in amber - but it is never clear why, and this is why the characters do not come alive for me. (Predestination?)

Beyond character development, there is dialogue, scene, and plot. On the matter of the first, the dialogue is fantastically tedious. Glory cries. Jack says he is sorry ad nauseum. On scene, there is just about one scene in the entire book. It is more like a play than a novel. The characters migrate from kitchen to bed to barn to living room, over and over again, with almost nothing changing each time the scene is revisited. Jack says something; it bothers his father; Jack apologizes; Glory weeps. Good grief. On plot, the prodigal son arrives sinful, he continues to sin, and he leaves a sinner. The father loves the son at the beginning, at the middle, and then loses his faculties so .. it is unclear. Glory forgives in the first part of the book, and then forgives and forgives and forgives. Let's have a blow up!!! The lack of confrontation and crisis left this book going absolutely nowhere. The potential (albeit at the end of the book) for something great to take place, when Jack's African American wife arrives, is totally forfeited and the plot collapses before it even begins.

My feeling throughout this book was that Robinson was not ready to write her next book, and wrote this painfully during some terrible attack of writer's block. Anyone who could write Gilead will live to write another great novel. I await it, with all the eagerness I awaited Home.

Katie Cameron

Isn't it so often the case that the wildest child is often the favored child? Marilynne Robinson gives us a story of elderly parents, adult children as caretakers, life in a small, conservative town, and the challenges of atoning for the actions of our youth.

Glory Boughton, in her 30s, unmarried and now unemployed, travels home to Gilead, Iowa, to take care of her aging father whose health is declining. She suffers her own losses silently and stoically as her father grieves for and yearns to see Jack, the wayward, difficult son who has disappeared from the family for years. When Jack shows up on the doorstep, these characters struggle with atonement, grief, depression, forgiveness, and self-hatred. Jack is the alcoholic who hasn't held one job for very long; Glory is the good daughter trying to keep peace in the family while nurturing Jack back to some semblance of emotional health.

Jack moves in and begins to force the family's property and home back into something resembling what he remembers from happier times. He tries to make himself smaller and unnoticed, all the while struggling with his own demons and the compulsion to escape through drink. Glory, meanwhile, mourns the loss of what she once imagined to be a happier, married life with a family of her own. "What have I done with my life?" Glory asks. "It is as if I had a dream of adult life and woke up from it, still here in my parents' house." Anyone who has truly had to return "home" again can probably relate to this on some level.

All the while these characters function within the values of 1950s small-town America (this almost seems like a different world now). They are, after all, the children of a prominent reverend, and their outward appearance and reputation in this small town takes precedence over their own needs to reach out for support and comfort. Jack and his father find that they are on opposite ends regarding politics and the heated racial relations affecting the country during that time, and Glory starts to put together small clues about Jack's life during the time he was away from the family.

Although Glory is the third-person narrator of this story, this story is about Jack and his struggles with his father and with his own fatherhood. All of the characters are focused more on their internal struggles and emotions, and the reader spends this time caught up in the internalizations of these characters - it is at times almost like they do not actually interact with each other as much as they "imagine" how they interact with each other.

Narrator Maggi-Meg Reed does a fine job overall, but her interpretation of some of the characters - especially Reverend Boughton - is somewhat off-putting, in my opinion. She makes this elderly man sound beyond elderly, bordering on ancient, and that voice was grating. Still, this is a worthy audiobook. I can't exactly say that I enjoyed it because this is a gut-wrenchingly emotional story, but Robinson's writing is superb, and it was so easy to fall into the narrative. This is a sad tale; Jack brings in some humor, but these characters have so many regrets, and that comes out time and again. I actually felt a bit drained by the end of this novel, but I recommend it to anyone who appreciates good narrative and solid story-telling.

Although the book has much to recommend it, I didn't enjoy it. The only plot is human sadness.
The writing is finely crafted and the book offers gentle insights into the human condition and into the bonds of family. The character of Robert Boughton is nicely developed. He is presented as a thoughtful, loving, generous, flawed, occasionally demanding, aging man. His daughter Glory has returned to care for him as he slips toward his death. Her character is full of patience and regret, and I found her less nuanced, less convincing than her father. She is overshadowed by her brother Jack, who can't seem to escape his fate as the troublesome, difficult, and despairing prodigal son. He has always been his father's greatest worry. He gets the lion's share of attention because he is difficult. Although the book is beautifully written, it is overly long, the pace is slow, and the effect is one of pervasive melancholy.

I spent many years out to sea. Every time I went home the only thing that had changed was me. The people in my family, my friends all seemed to be stuck in the rut that they were when I left.

Home, the novel, is a great look into a family and all of the baggage and issues along with it. It at times is a happy book, but more often than not it touches at your heart and doesn't let go. It at times is about redemption and healing. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this book on the road as I was traveling. Very recommended!

Everything in this novel rings true from the complex dynamic between a minister and his black sheep son right down to the last detail of life in a small town. I felt like I was there and knew this family. Certainly I have met such families for real in small town Iowa! Enjoyable read!