Returning to Gilead to care for her dying father, Glory Boughton is joined by her long-absent brother, with whom she bonds throughout his struggles with alcoholism, unemployment, and their father's traditionalist values.
Blackwell North Amer
Hundreds of thousands were enthralled by the luminous voice of John Ames in Gilead, Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer Prize–winning novel. Home is an entirely independent, deeply affecting novel that takes place concurrently in the same locale, this time in the household of Reverend Robert Boughton, Ames's closest friend.
Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack—the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty years—comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain.
Jack is one of the great characters in recent literature. A bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold a job, he is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his traditionalist father, though he remains Boughton's most beloved child. Brilliant, lovable, and wayward, Jack forges an intense bond with Glory and engages painfully with Ames, his godfather and namesake.
Home is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and faith. It is Robinson's greatest work, an unforgettable embodiment of the deepest and most universal emotions.
Home is a 2008 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.
Baker
& Taylor
Returning to Gilead to care for her dying father, Glory Boughton, the daughter of John Ames's closest friend, is joined by her long-absent brother, with whom she bonds throughout his struggles with alcoholism, unemployment, and their father's traditionalist values. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gilead.
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Add a QuoteShe went to the porch to watch him walk away down the road. He was too thin and his clothes were weary, weary. There was nothing of youth about him, only the transient vigor of a man acting on a decision he refused to reconsider or regret. No, there might have been some remnant of the old aplomb. Who would bother to be kind to him? A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their face. Ah, Jack.
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Add a CommentReally slow moving. Tried to keep reading but could not make it past page 150. Did not enjoy at all.
I enjoyed Ms. Robinson's other novels and this one didn't disappoint. Her ability to completely describe a character so that you think you must know them too is incredible. The character of Jack is a perfect example of the contradictions that lie within each person. The many facets of his personality made him an interesting if somewhat unlikeable character. Only his sister Glory can finally understand him and let him go.
No chapters, but a continuous read about Glory (40+) her brother Jack and their ailing aging father. They have both come home to take care of Rev Boughton who has always loved Jack but could never understand him. Poignant story about the difficulties of a private, lonely, uncommunicative, Presbyterian family. Many secrets, or untold stories are alluded to and occasionally revealed.
I loved this book almost more than its companion "Gilead," which I reread just before reading "Home." Shifting from John Ames to his best friend Rev. Boughton's children, the focus is on the return of Jack, his favorite, and his sister Glory, the family caregiver. The two men turn the parable of the Prodigal Son on its head. Boughton can't stop preaching in a nagging way, and Jack can't stop his secretive, evasive ways. I agree, the Nobel prize for literature is in order for Robinson, especially with "Lila" under her belt as well. Her gift with characters is incredible, her writing is smooth, her descriptions are clear. Do read the quotation--it gives just one example of the riches of her language. That she puts all this in the framework of mid 20th c. Iowa small town Christianity is rather beside the point. Robinson writes about the human condition better than about anybody I've ever read.
Robinson is the master of characterization. Every nuance, insecurity, and layer of her characters intertwine into the perfect network of tension, misunderstanding, and irresolution which is incredibly convincing and utterly relatable. This book was somewhat of a counseling session for me. I'll be checking out Robinson's other works in the Gilead universe
I say let's just give her the Nobel Prize now. Robinson is clearly one of the best writers on the planet, writing with a concentration of power and grace that can leave you flabbergasted, coming as it does in such as quiet and unassuming package. No noisy scenes, no emotional rants--just true-to-life characters doing their best in a morally compromised world. Here she revisits Gilead, Iowa, shifting from the perspective of Rev. Ames to the children of his life-long friend, the Presbyterian Rev. Broughton. The shift in perspective lets us see the 1950s world of Gilead as a completely different universe.
I love Marilynne Robinson so much. How is it that a story so simple as coming home is heart-wrenchingly captivating for more than 300 pages? Wrenchingly is not even a word. And how does she make it so that I feel I can relate to every character? I don't know. I just want her to keep writing.
I'm dying to read this book it sounds so good!
I nearly didn't read this book. The first chapters didn't grab my attention but i"m so glad I persevered. It's a touching story about a family with a wayward adult son and how he tries to reconcile his life with his youngest sister and his aging father, a former Presbyterian minister. The "illumination" of the characters is sensitive, touching and painful. It's not a book about "action" but about the trials and tribulations of people trying to make sense of their lives.
This book, with a prodigal son character, is about the question of what is "home". Although well-written, I could not get past the author's strong religious beliefs.