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66 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The prodigal son comes home 4.5 stars, 27 Nov 2008
'Home to stay, Glory! Yes!' her father said, and her heart sank. He attempted a twinkle of joy at this thought, but his eyes were damp with commiseration. 'To stay for a while this time!' he amended, and took her bag from her, first shifting his cane to his weaker hand.'
Marilynne Robinson's Home opens with retired minister Robert Broughton's youngest daughter reluctantly returning to her father's house, her childhood home - essentially to nurse him as he dies. She is one of eight children, the only one free to take care of him. She has brought her own secrets back to her house - her life has not followed the conventions of 1950s small town America. Her brother Jack, the 'ne'er do well' of the family, the son most beloved of the father, writes to say that he will be coming home after twenty years.
The prodigal returns with a hangover but seeks to make amends for the disgrace he brought to the family as a youngster. We gradually learn of his wrongdoings as a boy and snippets of his life since. Though he is not religious he turns to John Ames, also a minister and Robert Broughton's life long friend - and for whom Jack was named - for a blessing and redemption. Jack's life is clearly still complicated - there is a woman he writes to but something has gone wrong. As readers we understand, perhaps, more about his relationship with Della and the secret involved there than his family living in the same house are able to pick up.
Everything slows down in the middle of the novel as Jack looks for work, fixes the De Soto in the garage, works in the garden and avoids booze. Glory and Jack start to grow close though their shared work about the house and garden, through small kindnesses to each other and in sharing the care of their father. In a family where words and letters and books have always been important they do not talk much; communication is indirect and politeness and well-meaning gets in the way. Jack and Glory do tell each other more than either can tell their father.
The novel is strong on time and place. Jack has been living in St Louis and sympathises with the 'coloured' and in 1957 what appears to be the incipient civil rights movement. Gilead is small town America where Jack's disgrace was visited on the whole family. There is genteel poverty and there is the sense of life revolving around the church and home. As Robert Broughton comes to the end of his life it is Jack's immortal soul he is concerned for.
Though very different in style Home reminded me of Anne Enright's The Gathering where two siblings of a large family have a special bond, where the sister longs for her 'damaged' brother to come right, where there is the sadness of unrealised potential.
This novel stands alone but is a companion piece to Gilead, which was written from the point of view of letters from elderly John Ames to his six year old son, and covers much of the same period of time. We see now how John Ames and his namesake have misunderstood each other. I think the third person narrative style in Home works well. Though also a novel about fathers and sons Glory provides another point of view, another player in the family dynamics. Robert Broughton longs to forgive his son but can't quite manage to do it. Glory forgives him quickly and manages to wish more for him than she expects for herself.
I loved Housekeeping, was not fully enamoured of Gilead when it came out but will return to it after reading Home, which I thought was beautifully written and realised, though very very sad.
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34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Another visit to Gilead, 11 Feb 2009
I mistakenly thought Marilynne Robinson's Home was a sequel to Gilead (2004). It's not. It's contemporaneous -- the same story from a different perspective, though knowledge of the earlier Pulitzer-winning novel is assumed. One almost wonders whether Home started life as a notebook for Gilead. Ever wondered what supporting characters in novels do when they're not on the page? No? Well now you can find out anyway. It's probably a good idea to leave all your expectations at the door with Home, as its markedly different to Robinson's previous novels.
Where Housekeeping (1980) and Gilead were masterful fictionalized memoirs that dove deep into their narrator's personal and family history, Home is a reasonably straightforward, third-person, temporally-continuous narrative. Jack Boughton arrives home after twenty years to live in the desolate house of his ailing minister father, Robert, and his heartbroken spinster sister, Glory.
Though the narration looks-in on the thoughts of Glory (now all but a servant to her father), Glory is primarily a spectator to the comings and goings of Jack, who is the central driving force in the plot. In his childhood, he fathered a child and ran away. He returns from his time in the wilderness disgraced, determined to win the support of his father and the Rev'd John Ames (his namesake and the narrator of Gilead), hoping against hope to build a settled life for himself in this isolated Iowa town, dreaming that his black wife will return to him from St Louis.
It sounds like the setup for a great novel. And it is. But that novel is Gilead. Home, though still good, pales in comparison. Housekeeping and Gilead are wonderful for their subjectiveness: their whimsical, unreliable narration, full of little reminisces, stories from long ago and (in Ames's case) offhand insights regarding theology. But Home is practically a study of boredom -- it's three miserable, ordinary people, living in an empty house. It's Big Brother 1956.
The book's strength is, unsurprisingly, Robinson's sensational descriptive prose. Though I was left nonplussed by Home, I still say without hesitation that Robinson is one of the best stylists of English I've ever come across, and the magician that wowed the world with Housekeeping is still in evidence here. Robinson can still write a stunning sentence, but this whole is less than the sum of its parts.
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28 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Home - Marilynne Robinson, 19 April 2009
Marilynne Robinson is the author of Housekeeping (1981), chosen as one of the Observer's 100 greatest novels of all time, received the PEN/Hemingway Award for the best first novel and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and Gilead (2004) which won the Pulitzer and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her latest work Home is on the Orange Prize for Fiction longlist and judging by the number of extremely laudatory reviews is quite likely to garner other nominations or indeed awards.
Not often do authors receive such unanimous commendation from critics and readers alike, and when a book comes so highly praised it can be an unsettling experience to be the lone voice in the wilderness expressing dissent. There is always a lurking suspicion that perhaps it is the carping reader rather than the book that is at fault. And so having struggled and ultimately failed with both the earlier novels I was filled with enthusiasm when starting Robinson's latest "masterpiece" (as it is frequently described). Perhaps this novel, I thought, would convert me and allow me to join the ranked masses of her admirers.
The book is a companion piece to Gilead, and whilst it is not absolutely necessary to have read the earlier book first, the two novels are inextricably linked and each benefits from reading the other. Indeed a knowledge of Gilead is somewhat assumed in Home. Both books occupy the same time frame and the central drama - the return of prodigal son Jack Boughton to the parental home - is identical. Gilead takes the form of a letter written by 76-year old preacher John Ames to his six-year old son. Home is a more conventional linear narrative, written from the perspective of the Boughton household, friends and neighbours of the Ames family. The plot, such as it is, is essentially a simple one. After a 20 year absence, the details of which are gradually revealed to us, Jack Boughton, the favourite but troubled son, comes home in search of redemption and to visit his dying father. His sister Glory has already moved back home after troubles in her own life, and it is through her eyes that the reunion and subsequent events take place.
The novel is at heart an exploration of family and the meaning of "home", how the behaviour of each member of a family impacts on the life of the other members and examines the influence of parental and sibling relationships. The Christian faith is integral to the lives of all the characters and biblical themes and references abound.
Robinson's style is lucid and elegant. The novel is slow-paced and controlled, and the story unfolds effortlessly as the tensions and secrets of the past are revealed. She is undoubtedly an accomplished writer and stylistically I can appreciate her merits. But ultimately the novel failed for me and I couldn't wait to finish it. Indeed, had I not been reading it to review it I would have abandoned it as I found it both turgid and unconvincing. The characters never became real to me and thus I felt no connection to them. The Reverend Boughton's piety and manipulative behaviour felt contrived, Jack's behaviour as either sinner or repentant never came alive, and Glory's self-effacement and devotion to her father was simply irritating. These characters are obviously suffering and yet I could not engage with them, and in a novel where personal and familial relationships are paramount, this lack of connection meant the book for me was a somewhat tedious read.
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