Home: A Novel | Marilynne Robinson | Can You Go Home Again?

Home: A Novel | Marilynne Robinson | Return of the Prodigal

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Home: A Novel

	Home: A Novel Marilynne Robinson Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 24 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

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.

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Can You Go Home Again?

When Glory Boughton returns home to Gilead to care for her ailing father, she carries with her the regrets and fantasies of a life of her own - now abandoned. But soon after her return to the old homestead, her prodigal brother Jack writes a letter, announcing that he, too, is on his way home.

After more than twenty years gone, she barely recognizes him - and a part of her resents his return, coming as it does at a time when the old man needs this connection so badly. But as time passes, she and Jack come to a deeper understanding of each other, revealing some of their own secrets that neither is eager to share with anyone.

Caring for their father together, fixing up the old homestead, which has become quite neglected in the past few years, they seemingly form a team...Protecting each other against the harshness of the life here, which remains the same, with the Reverend Ames sitting in judgment and the town folk glancing sidelong at Jack as if they half-expect him to steal from them...This is the reputation Jack once held, and his twenty-year abandonment of the family and any ties to this community, somehow reinforces this view. And Jack, self-deprecatory and doing nothing to eradicate the image the townspeople hold of him, continues in his quiet way to try to make some kind of amends - on the home front and with the minister. Their father, too, a former minister, holds many beliefs that cast someone like Jack in a "sinner" role.

Slowly, the author peels away the layers that conceal the sadness and loss carried by these two, as they walk along the old familiar paths in the town and as they fall into the humble patterns of their youth in this home that is filled with memories of a time long ago...

Dreams and loves and fantasies have been cast aside. In many ways, it seems as if these two people are sacrificing some other life to be here, caring for the old man, who barely recognizes them at times. And as the days and weeks pass, it becomes clear that, despite the moments of reconnection, time has not healed all the old wounds and the future is not what they expected...

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gilead: A Novel comes Home: A Novel, Ms. Robinson's latest triumphant chronicle of the homey things that conjure up memories of long-ago times.

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Return of the Prodigal

It is 1957 and after being away two decades Jack Boughton comes home, showing up on the back porch, thin and wearing a brown suit, "tapping his hat against his pant leg as if he could not make up his mind whether to knock on the glass or turn the knob or simply to leave again." He doesn't leave.

The prodigal's return is the major focal point of Marilynn Robinson's Masterpiece GILEAD, written twenty years after her first novel HOUSEKEEPING. Fortunately it's only been four years since GILEAD. Maybe she was able to shave sixteen years off this one, because it's a retelling of the last one, but from a different person's point of view.

Still, the novel has to live by itself, in my opinion anyway, and in my opinion this one does. There's not a lot of action, in fact other than a ride in a car, there isn't any at all, but there is wonderful writing. In Gilead we saw the story from the Rev. John Ames point of view in the form of a letter he was writing to his young son Robby, to be read after his death. John doesn't view Jack's return or Jack himself in nearly the same light as his younger sister Glory. This novel is told in the third person and it's told from Glory's point of view.

It goes without saying that people are going to compare the two books. Heck, how could you not? Do you need to read this if you've read Gilead? Well, if you liked Gilead you need to. This is a beautifully told story of the return of a prodigal son. There are problems and conflicts and unlike in a lot of stories, they don't all get resolved. That's all part of the beauty of this beautiful book.

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Divinely Written

John James is the narrator of GILEAD. He is the Congregationalist minister in Gilead, Iowa and we see him as serious, kind and wise. He seems almost perfect, but he has some imperfections he struggles with. The novel is actually a letter to his young son and we follow the dying man as he reflect on his life, philosophy, scripture and anything else that comes to mind and one of the things that comes to mind is the homecoming of his namesake -- John, called Jack, Boughton -- the son of his friend, Robert Boughton, who is the Presbyterian minister in Gilead.

This is the same story retold, made more real, at least for me, because it's told in the third person point of view from the viewpoint of Robert Boughon's youngest daughter, Glory, who is also Jack's younger sister. Glory is an unmarried English teacher, who has come home to take care of her father, who is also old and ill. The ministers are close and so it's only fitting that these two books are as well. I love them both.

John Ames Boughton, Jack, has returned after twenty years away. He'd been wicked and wild and Ames at times worries that Jack is paying two much attention to Lila, his young wife. But Jack isn't after Lila, he's got plenty on his mind to keep him occupied and if you've read Gilead before this, you'll know what, but it you haven't it won't be a shocker, because it's 2008, but either way you'll enjoy this book.

I could just keep going, talking on and on about these two books, about how much I liked the writing, because it's just so divine. I must admit that I am wondering if Marilynn Robinson is planning a third novel about these events told from Jack's point of view. I know I'd be lining up to buy it.

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A beautiful, contemplative book

In Home, 38-year-old Glory Boughten returns to her childhood home to care for her dying father, a retired Presbyterian minister. Not long after Glory's arrival, her wayward brother Jack arrives after a twenty-year absence. By returning home, Glory and Jack are fleeing unhappy pasts and confronting inner turmoil. Robinson shows Glory and Jack reconnecting in slow, weighty dialog that emphasizes just how serious things are. The story is filled with religious discussions, regretful confessions, and also plenty of forgiveness. Movements are small, comments are oblique, and nothing much happens. Eventually, a secret is revealed about Jack, but, by that point in the story, we realize Home is not about what happens. Instead, it's about revealing the meaning of this life by understanding where we come from. This is a beautiful, contemplative book.

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Robinson Has Done It Again

Robinson is clearly one of the most gifted writers of our time. Her style is unique. Her character development is amazing. I feel like her characters are my best friends. I really care about them. The insights of the characters through Robinson are often profound, always interesting. The only criticism I can come up with is that the book, like her other fiction, starts slowly. It took me a while to "get into" the characters and the plot, but after 50 pages or so, I was hooked. It takes a little patience. A wonderful novel. Thank you Ms. Robinson for sharing with us.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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