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Home

3.69 of 5 stars 3.69 · rating details · 5,480 ratings · 1,128 reviews

America’s most celebrated novelist, Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison extends her profound take on our history with this twentieth-century tale of redemption: a taut and tortured story about one man’s desperate search for himself in a world disfigured by war.

Frank Money is an angry, self-loathing veteran of the Korean War who, after traumatic experiences on the front lines,...more

Kindle Edition, 160 pages

Published May 8th 2012 by Alfred A. Knopf

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Dec 11, 2012 Tod Wodicka rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Toni Morrison’s new novel, Home, begins with two children witnessing a man being buried – presumably alive. It’s a strong opening.

‘We could not see the faces of the men doing the burying, only their trousers; but we saw the edge of a spade drive the jerking foot down to join the rest of itself.’

But it’s also a testament to this unsubtle book’s endless litany of atrocities that by the end, I’d almost totally forgotten about the man being buried alive. Think about that for a moment: the book is a...more

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May 14, 2012 KFed rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

At this point I've read all of TM's novels, save one -- Paradise -- and that was a novel I at least started and wanted to get through but life got in the way. (Maybe, also, I'd gotten far enough to know it wasn't going to be my scene). As well, I've seen her read three times -- once from A Mercy a year before it was published and again shortly after it was released, with the memories of that earlier reading still ringing fresh in my ears. The final time I heard her read it was from this novel, H ...more At this point I've read all of TM's novels, save one -- Paradise -- and that was a novel I at least started and wanted to get through but life got in the way. (Maybe, also, I'd gotten far enough to know it wasn't going to be my scene). As well, I've seen her read three times -- once from A Mercy a year before it was published and again shortly after it was released, with the memories of that earlier reading still ringing fresh in my ears. The final time I heard her read it was from this novel, Home, about a year ago, some time before its release this week. She read the opening chapter, which is as vivid now as it was when I first heard it.

It's safe to say that, by now, I have a fairly set/clear opinion on Toni Morrison. I very much enjoy and admire her work, but not for the reasons people often seem tasked to name when evaluating or explaining her contribution. Yes, she's certainly had great impact on the ways we talk about race, national history, cultural memory, gender, etc. But in her most skillfully-written books (for me, these are Beloved, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, and The Bluest Eye:), Morrison's most radical contribution is that she teaches us, measure for measure, how to write a book: how to craft an opening line, an opening set of lines, how they should bud into a page, what that page should offer the chapter, what that chapter should offer the book -- how it is, in other words, that keen attention to literary form can able one to do all the things she's trying to do with the book's social and political themes. I almost always feel safe in Morrison's hands because I know that in her best work, I'll have reached the finish line with a better sense of what a novel is and what it can do: a sense that the novel, in the most formal and generic sense, can be pushed open to accommodate the lives of black people. For all the ways that she's absolutely indebted to Woolf and Faulker, per methods of literary style, I would say that there's only one other American novelist whose work stirs for me a similar sense of the genre's range of possibilities, and that's Henry James. Other great examples for me would include Jean Toomer, Austen, Fitzgerald, Hawthorne, Wharton, Flaubert, and a few others.

These are tough shoes to fill, and keep filling. It's maybe for this reason, combined with the fact that Morrison is trying to experiment with other, more lucid and orally-determined storytelling forms, that her work has since Jazz become steadily less invested in solving the problem of the novel as a formal genre, instead exploring the ways that our interest in typical novel form might be overturned. Home is not a bad book, but it is, for me, a less appealing and challenging one, because it seems that for Morrison, all the questions of genre have already been answered: simply put, novels aren't sufficient, so instead of trying to craft her characters' lives into perfectly gem-like versions of "the novel," we'll attempt let them exist as something else, closer to what these characters and their lives actually are.

I admire this project, and I get it, and I'd even encourage it. ...But I'm a sucker for the pristine formalism of early Morrison. It challenged, provoked and inspired me, where this novel and a few of her other more recent attempts do not. By the end of this novel, it was not clear to me why it was written this way -- why the oral, hindsight counter narrative interjections? Why the sparsity, the central focus on such a limited range of experiences and memories? Why this war? Nothing in the novel was given enough meat to seem like it was making a case for anything, which on the one hand makes sense but on the other made the novel feel half-baked.

So, this is not my favorite, but it certainly isn't bad. Still, I look forward to a day when Morrison gives as, to borrow the phrase of the critics, a "return to form." I miss the novels in which literally everything about them, from the number and shape of the chapters to the number and shape of the lines, could tell us something. 'til then...(less)

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Oct 04, 2012 Sydney Young rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: american-fiction, historical, my-favorites, book-club-pitch

This is a book worth a deeper dig so I've reread it on my Kindle for its highlighting ability. I highly recommend Home to readers and classrooms. Below is a small bit of why I chose it to book review at the Paris Public Library (this Thursday at 6:30, hope you can join me), beginning with the opening quote:

“Whose house is this?
Whose night keeps out the light
In here? Say, who owns this house?
It’s not mine. I dreamed another, sweeter, brighter
With a view of lakes crossed in painted boats;
Of fields...more This is a book worth a deeper dig so I've reread it on my Kindle for its highlighting ability. I highly recommend Home to readers and classrooms. Below is a small bit of why I chose it to book review at the Paris Public Library (this Thursday at 6:30, hope you can join me), beginning with the opening quote:

“Whose house is this?
Whose night keeps out the light
In here? Say, who owns this house?
It’s not mine. I dreamed another, sweeter, brighter
With a view of lakes crossed in painted boats;
Of fields wide as arms open for me.
This house is strange. Its shadows lie.
Say, tell me, why does its lock fit my key?”

I don't know about you, but this resonates deep within me. It's the story of growing up, of finding yourself. Of finding out that home, for good or bad, has made a lasting impression on you, and, just maybe, you can reconcile yourself with that. Perhaps, on a grander scale, it is also a reconciliation to the awareness and owning of our country, good and bad.

I love the book for the imagery of the time that it invokes, and for the depth of each character that the author gives us. I love the use of many literary styles, and the fact that the book is still very accessible. I love the ending.

Here is the low down:

Frank is a Korean vet who was treated equally in the war but slips back into segregated America as it if it is still the norm, which is a good subtle shock for the modern reader, so far away from it. But Frank has bigger worries, mainly that he is haunted by the war. This book is the story of his quest to find his sister, and during his travels he finds himself. This is a very American theme, in the fashion of Mark Twain and Charles Frazier (Cold Mountain). Frank breaks through and speaks to the reader, and occasionally to the author; this is a highly effective, somewhat twisted, way to jar the reader out of the story itself and into deeper thought. Toni Morrison is skilled enough to pull it off.

Cee (Ycidra) is Frank's sister, who thinks that maybe she'd have learned to think for herself if Frank hadn't been there to constantly protect her. She is an accident waiting to happen, a consummate victim, although she doesn't try to be, so trouble finds her when Frank leaves for the war. She and Frank bind each other to this earth, and eventually save each other, once they learn their own self worth. Something in that reminds me of Celie in the Color Purple, and Cee's story is very much an American girl coming of age story, with the honest portrayal of the plight of the black woman.

There are other memorable characters, some snapshots, some deeper, and plenty of themes, all delivered in a punch at 160 pages on my Kindle. Morrison trueists don't like this book very much because it doesn't use the magical realism style that they all love. If that includes you, know that this is American realism fiction, and take the time to think deeper than the story. Ask yourself how the author is so talented to make us care in such a short time. Look at the wording and sentences, and see how she shows rather than tells. Search for all those little details that make the writing so good. Learn from a living legend, who makes you dissatisfied with the humdrum. (less)

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May 18, 2012 Teresa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

3 and 1/2 stars

I would never dare to criticize Toni Morrison; I love the way she writes. I love the way she writes in this novella too, but anything I'd say about this book would be subject to how much more strongly I felt about her other novels. (It's the way I tend to rate any author of whom I've read more than one work.) And I admit that if this book were written by any other writer (or if it were the first thing I'd read by her), I most likely would've given it a solid 4 stars.

I especially l...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, usa-historical, read-2012

Toni Morrison never takes the easy way out. She rarely offers closure, she never spares the reader the pain, violence and disappointment that have shaped the black experience in America. Yet her books are never without slices of redemption, compassion and even moments of joy that make the intolerable somehow bearable.

Home, barely weighing in as a novel at 145 pages, packs every one of Morrison's literary themes into its compact format: Jim Crow, sharecropping, strong, independent female characte...more Toni Morrison never takes the easy way out. She rarely offers closure, she never spares the reader the pain, violence and disappointment that have shaped the black experience in America. Yet her books are never without slices of redemption, compassion and even moments of joy that make the intolerable somehow bearable.

Home, barely weighing in as a novel at 145 pages, packs every one of Morrison's literary themes into its compact format: Jim Crow, sharecropping, strong, independent female characters making their way and weaker women exploited by white and black men alike, eugenics, even slavery, if we consider what young Cee suffers. Morrison also confronts us with post-traumatic stress disorder, as the main character, Frank Money, returns the U.S. shattered by the Korean War. And there is a touch of magical surrealism, a technique that Morrison often employs to weave allegory into her brutal realism.

What makes such fullness of content possible in this slim volume is a departure from Morrison's Gothic, rich, lyrical style. Home is restrained, the sentences are often brief and declarative, the scenes are short; though she does use characters' remembrances of times past to show significant amounts of backstory. But her writing is as powerful as has ever been. I love this sentence, for its imagery, its rhythm, the way the beat of it perfectly mirrors its action. The "girl" in this sentence refers to a honeydew melon:

Sarah slid a long, sharp knife from a drawer and, with intense anticipation of the pleasure to come, cut the girl in two.

Two long, slow phrases - drawing out the knife, drawing out the anticipation - then smack! She cuts the girl in two.

This is what it's like reading Toni Morrison - every word, every phrase contribute to what she wants the reader to experience and how she wants the experience to feel. Of course, this is every writer's aim. Few succeed like Toni Morrison.

I didn't find this story transformative, perhaps because it is so relentlessly bleak, until the very end. But I find so much in the writing to admire. (less)

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Jun 01, 2012 Desiree rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poc-author-content, own-ebook, finished-and-reviewed, read-ebook-format, read-on-nook-touch

I'm honestly not sure if I liked this book or not. I just couldn't get into it as much as I would have liked. At first I was going to give it 2 stars to represent it being okay but I remembered there were elements of the book that I did like e.g. Frank's sidebar with the reader, (view spoiler). ToMo also deals with some pretty heavy topics within the narrative i.e. PTSD and eugenics.

The story revolves around Frank Mon...more

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Sep 14, 2012 Sydney Young rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-favorites, american-fiction, bookclub-selections, historical, must-read-in-your-lifetime, my-favorites, read-because-i-thought-i-should, women, war

I loved this book more than I have loved a book in a long time. There are so many things to discuss about this book that I choose it for my first Book Review at the Paris Public Library on October 4, 2012 at 6:30. This is a short book, so I invite you to read this and come.

I thought I was going to get a "vet returns home" book. I did get that, but so much more. Having grown up on a farm, and in small town, and in the south, this book evoked a lot of memories for me, except through the unique exp...more

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May 08, 2013 K rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I cannot rate a book by Toni Morrison - not in the same common form I would rate other books. Toni Morrison is such an icon in African American and feminist literature. She has my greatest respect. She is far beyond my clumsy critiques. I appreciate this novel. It is on the shorter side, poetic and multi-dimensional. This might be a fast read, but the messages within it are not light and take time to digest. My only regret is that I have no lecture or course to read this book along with. A group...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Roger DeBlanck rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

A new novel from Toni Morrison is an event to relish. With a literary career spanning into its fifth decade, she continues to produce work as powerful and unforgettable as any fiction published in this day and age. In her most slender work of fiction to date, Home lacks none of the storytelling ingenuity and character depth that are hallmarks of every one of her works. A veteran of the Korean War, Frank Money returns to the states fortunate enough to have escaped physical wounds. More distressin...more A new novel from Toni Morrison is an event to relish. With a literary career spanning into its fifth decade, she continues to produce work as powerful and unforgettable as any fiction published in this day and age. In her most slender work of fiction to date, Home lacks none of the storytelling ingenuity and character depth that are hallmarks of every one of her works. A veteran of the Korean War, Frank Money returns to the states fortunate enough to have escaped physical wounds. More distressingly, though, he suffers from flashback moments of nightmarish anguish over the atrocities he committed as a soldier. He is also distressed over any thought of returning to his god-forsaken hometown of Lotus, Georgia. When a letter arrives from a resident of his childhood town telling him that his younger sister, Ycidra ("Cee"), has fallen victim to a crime, Frank bolts back to the place he despises in order to save her. The central story of Frank and Cee is compelling and tender, a recounting of life's struggle to survive and find ways to forgive and move on. Morrison packs surprises and shocks, and the ending is tremendously arresting, sad, and beautiful in its power to explore how any transgression can be faced with dignity and how solace can be found in a redeeming act of grace. The main plot is supplemented with side stories, full of their own intrigue. Even in such a short novel like Home, Morrison's range of narrative is extraordinary, how everything feels so authentic and every character, no matter how minor, feels so real. Her novels are never one straightforward story; they are canvases of insight, interwoven tableaus of places and people. Every detail is fascinating, her prose vibrant and fresh, reminding us how incredibly brilliant Toni Morrison is. In its brevity, Home is another testament that with each work Toni Morrison breaks new ground as an artist and re-establishes the measure of what every writer should do: challenge their self and continue to produce work that bristles with emotion, packs a punch, and evokes admiration.(less)

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Jun 17, 2012 Vern rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle-reads, arc

“Look to yourself. You free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you.”

Frank Money is grappling with “normal life” after returning home from the Korean War. Morrison opens the story Frank having one of his many flashbacks from his childhood. The flashback happens while he is in restraints in a mental hospital. The war zone has basically made Frank a wanderer. While in a brief relationship with an ambitious young woman, Lily, Frank gets a cryptic message from his sister that sends him o...more

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Feb 10, 2013 Melinda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, fiction

Home is the story of Frank Money, a young Black Korean War veteran who returns to the US with PTSD. He receives news that his younger sister, Ycidra (Cee), is very ill, and he embarks on a trip to save her, navigating racist discrimination on his way back home.

Whenever I read Toni Morrison's writing, I am always impressed anew at her prodigious talent. She is so good at achieving that perfect balance of well crafted prose, terrific pacing, fascinating storyline, well-rounded characters, and subt...more

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Nov 08, 2012 Hussain Laghabi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

"I am still at the beginning of my journey. Meanwhile, I don't have that linguistic competence to make a judgement on this literary work stylistically, but I can say that I found the first moments of it a kind of poetic language which you can notice and feel without a huge expertise in poetry tools! You might have the same opinion if you like singing and the spirit of music in the structure of expressions and sentences.
I say this without any knowledge or background of the author in terms of her...more

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May 28, 2012 Beatnik Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

http://www.cozylittlebookjournal.com/...

Like so many of Toni Morrison’s novels, Home is heartbreaking and haunting, a story of race and loss and the sometimes bittersweet meaning of home. Frank Money is an African American veteran of the Korean War, attempting to find his way home to Georgia in time to save his dying sister. He travels from town to town, chased by memories of the past and concerns for his safety in racist America.

I can’t think of another writer who can create characters so real...more

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Jul 21, 2012 Leshawn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2012, books-i-own

Brief and wonderful! I continue to worship at the altar of Toni Morrison and her unparalleled use of syntax, diction, metaphor and imagery.

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Apr 21, 2013 Corrie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

On Twitter, I had this exchange:

@ProfClaiborne: “@fallen7627: "They were so beautiful. And they stood like men."-- Toni Morrison (Home, 2012),”/ I love that line! Home is a beautiful novel

And Home is a beautiful novel. As I think about how to describe it, I find it really difficult except to say that this book is magic, it must be magic because even months after reading it I find that I cannot stop thinking about it and I find that I still cannot put into words what this book means to me. I stil...more

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Apr 16, 2013 Vouslisez.com rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Après sa venue, en septembre 2012 au Festival Américain de Vincennes, il fallait lire celle qui vient d’être décorée de la « Presidential Medal of Freedom » des mains du Président Obama. Cette auteure noire américaine, Prix Nobel de Littérature en 1993, révèle dans « Home » tout son talent en nous emmenant dans le Sud de l’Amérique au milieu des années cinquante. Tel un conte, la nature est, ici, un élément poétique omniprésent. Les deux personnages principaux nous apparaissent, d’abord, enfants...more

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Apr 09, 2013 Robert Strandquist rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: while-in-belgium

Twice I read "Home" because Morrison edits so fiercely. My conjecture is that she writes an opus of circa 400 pages then scratches, claws and pares it down to a terse 147. As a result, readers (at least me) are challenged to piece the puzzle into a whole. My second reading nearly did the trick. The early foreshadows and mere shadows came into sharper focus as the story progressed. Well, all but one. Whose bones do Frank and Cee bury? And, why? My guess is the bones are of the slain father who wa...more Twice I read "Home" because Morrison edits so fiercely. My conjecture is that she writes an opus of circa 400 pages then scratches, claws and pares it down to a terse 147. As a result, readers (at least me) are challenged to piece the puzzle into a whole. My second reading nearly did the trick. The early foreshadows and mere shadows came into sharper focus as the story progressed. Well, all but one. Whose bones do Frank and Cee bury? And, why? My guess is the bones are of the slain father who was killed in the knife fight with his son. It's a guess because Frank's only motivation for digging up and re-burying that makes sense to me has to do with his desire to restore his own life as a man of justice - serving as redemption for his past 'injustices'. I avoid using 'crimes' or 'sins' here because Morrison avoids using legal or religious contexts in any of the characters' moral worlds, a few clichés maybe, but no overriding Christianity is involved. Even the God-fearing women who restore Cee's broken body use their unschooled wits and wisdom and not their prayers to ressurect her. Also, Morrison avoids direct race reference. No one is identified as black or white, but the their actions and reactions tell those of us who know about the Jim Crow era of segregation in the U.S. which races were involved. So the ending has to do with both Frank's and Cee's change of heart about their home town of Lotus. According to Morrison, you can go home again.
For me, reading Morrison is also a learning experience. One example came in the scene after Frank is beaten and robbed in an alley by teenage thugs. He wanders out of a diner and hears a trumpet squeal. Following the music he went inside because the music matched his mood. Morrison writes, "After Hiroshima, the musicians understood as early as anyone that Truman's bomb changed everything and only scat and bebop could say how." What an insight! Unscripted, spontaneous music improvised from the soul of pain, outrage and confusion. Here Morrison captures a seachange of social attitude in musical terms. This, to me, is genius.
In a larger context, this novel reminds me of August Wilson's plays because it serves as a microcosm of a particular decade in American history. It also hits close to home because my uncle served in Korea in the early '50's and returned home with a newly acquired mistrust of black men thanks to the segregated U.S. Army corps. Yes, Morrison works on several levels simultaneously which speaks to her stature as a remarkable and well-noted artist. (less)

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Apr 07, 2013 Jarred Stancil rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book left me with mixed feelings, but overall satisfaction. I'm a huge Toni Morrison fan, so this book was high on my list of 'to-reads' when it came out.

On one hand, the prose is beautiful as always--her imagery and prose that is more like poetry always make her works enjoyable. The plot is intriguing as well, and she continues her theme of giving a voice to those who are otherwise voiceless. I particularly loved the structure (she always mixes it up!)--alternating first person and third...more

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Apr 02, 2013 Julie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Tout d'abord, je souhaite remercier PriceMinister et les éditions Christian Bourgeois de m'avoir fait parvenir ce livre dans le cadre des Matchs de la Rentrée Littéraire.

Que dire ? Dans un premier temps, je dois bien avouer avoir eu beaucoup de mal à entrer dans le récit. J'avais beau essayer, je ne parvenais pas à m'y plonger. Autant vous dire que la première partie a vraiment été difficile.

Cependant, petit à petit (et sans même m'en rendre compte, en fait ), j'ai fini par me laisser emporter...more

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Mar 14, 2013 Robert rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Toni Morrison's recent novel, Home, illustrates how novels manage to recover pieces of history historians have discarded--the population itself has discarded--and breathe life back into them.

Home is a post-Korean War tale about a brother and sister who grew up in Georgia, poor as dirt, were separated by a conflict neither understood, and then managed to reunite, still poor as dirt, diminished but loyal to their memories of their love for one another as children.

This is a short novel made longer...more

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Mar 14, 2013 Vivian Valvano rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Morrison's latest novel is a model of unity. It is short, beautifully constructed, elegantly written, and it begins and ends perfectly with stunning parallelism. I don't think a word is wasted. The protagonist is Frank Money, a haunted veteran of the Korean War; his beloved sister, Cee, is almost equally important. Some unforgettable, revelatory brief chapters are Frank's first-person directives to an unnamed writer or recorder. The remaining chapters narrate the rest of what we need to know in...more

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Feb 10, 2013 Alison rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013-read

Morrison chooses horrific details of African American history to craft this novel around, so at times the book feels more like a fictionalized history lesson (ie: these atrocities happened, and let's not forget) in the same vein as Beloved, but without the same level of craft. In a lesser author, the text may have felt too lesson-based, but Morrison pulls it off, if barely. And indeed, the atrocities she writes of should not be forgotten.

There are many redeeming details-- the theme of "home" is...more

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Feb 05, 2013 Bdalton rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I listened to the playaway audio version of the book - a version that was narrated by the author. There is something intimate about listening to a book read by the author and I always have the feeling that I understand something more about the story from the author's inflections and their choice of words to stress.

I found that I needed to relisten to the first chapters of the book in order to fully understand the story. The timeline isn't perfectly chronological. For me, the story only made sens...more

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Nov 02, 2012 Corey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: award-winners

Shoot… I’m really getting old. I read this book a month and a half ago and I guess I forgot to write a review right after finishing it. Now I can barely remember what I thought of it. I guess that’s why I write these reviews – if I didn’t have a record to go back to and look at for my opinions, then I could basically just recycle two books over and over because that’s how quickly they fade.

Ok I’ll try to reconstruct my opinion… Home was the story of an African-American brother and sister who we...more

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Oct 13, 2012 Lexy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, books-read-in-2012

I downloaded the audio version from the public library. Having read several of Ms. Morrison's previous books, I should have known better as I feel like I cheated myself. Read by Ms. Morrison, her soft spoken voice left me feeling a bit let down. Maybe because the main character is a man, Frank Money, and his words coming from her mouth seemed odd, particularly as she usually writes from a woman's perspective. This is a good book, don't get me wrong, just a book that should be read instead of lis...more

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Oct 01, 2012 Carrie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Quotes:

Chapter 2

The trick of imitating semi-coma, like playing dead face down in a muddy battlefield, was to concentrate on a single neutral object. Something that would smother any random hint of life. Ice, he thought, a cube of it, an icicle, an ice-crusted pond, or a frosted landscape. No. Too much emotion attached to frozen hills. Fire, then? Never. Too active. He would need something that stirred no feelings, encouraged no memory—sweet or shameful. Just searching for such an item was agitat...more

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Aug 17, 2012 Knitme23 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hmmmmmm. This was a "support Sherman's, local book store" purchase in July. It's pretty short but moves quickly and has some of Morrison's great terse but perfect language in it (she refers to "the unbelievable malignance of strangers" (98), and "country women who loved mean. . . The women handled sickness as though it were an affront, an illegal, invading braggart who needed whipping." (121) . Best of all, Morrison refers to "the period that rich people called the Depression and they called lif...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Jann Barber rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have never read a book by Toni Morrison. I understand that she usually has female protagonists. This book has Frank Money as the main character, although there are plenty of female characters populating the story.

This is a short, but powerful, story. Frank is a veteran of the Korean War and the trauma he endured while there follows him back to America. His journey to find and save his sister Cee is beautifully written.

I don't want to write any spoilers, but I will say that her opening chapter...more

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Aug 07, 2012 Heather rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was excited to see that Morrison had a new book. Pretty exciting, right?

This book is set in Georgia (mostly) and deals with Frank "Smart" Money returning from service in Korea. He fights his own demons and learns how to be honest about his own actions in war. He struggles in a romantic relationship and seems to deal with some PTSD. He goes home to Lotus, GA in order to save his sister who has fallen the victim of a doctor who takes a rather unnatural interest in studying 'the womb'.

The most c...more

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Jul 25, 2012 Marcy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What is home? Home is hopefully a place where parents care for their children and give them self-esteem. Home is a place filled with love. Home is a place where children and young adults do not want to escape.

This book begins with a war-torn veteran named Frank who escapes from a mental hospital. He seeks out a reverend who helps him find his way back to Georgia, where he will find his physically and emotionally abused younger sister and make a "home" for themselves back in Lotus, Georgia. Durin...more What is home? Home is hopefully a place where parents care for their children and give them self-esteem. Home is a place filled with love. Home is a place where children and young adults do not want to escape.

This book begins with a war-torn veteran named Frank who escapes from a mental hospital. He seeks out a reverend who helps him find his way back to Georgia, where he will find his physically and emotionally abused younger sister and make a "home" for themselves back in Lotus, Georgia. During Frank's travels by train and bus, Toni Morrison reveals he and his sister's childhood in certain chapters that have italicized words.

The reader also finds out at the beginning of this novel that the "white sheets" and the "rent man" in Texas forced families to leave and live their "deprived lives" elsewhere. Cee was born on the road as Frank's parents headed toward their parents' home in Louisianna. The grandmother, unbeknownst to the always working parents, emotionally and physically abused Cee as a child. She was called worthless, and grew up to believe she was worthless. Her brother Frank was her protector as a child. When Frank "escaped" Lotus, Georgia to the Korean war as a soldier, Cee ran off with a man who took her to Atlanta and left her broke. She finally took a job "helping" a doctor who experimented with her body, left almost for dead.

Meanwhile, Frank, on his way to save Cee, has to face his haunting images of war and hallucinations that plague him. The world of color turns black and white. Slowly, the color returns. "For months only alcohol dispersed his best friends, the hovering dead he could no longer hear, talk to, or laugh with." Frank, fighting the war with his childhood friends at his side, watches them die, one by one. The reader assumes his friends dying in front of him is what tortures Frank's mind. In Toni Morrison's brilliant revelations near the end of the book, we find that is really not the case. There is a greater demon that tortures this veteran.

It is ironic that Frank and Cee rebuild their sorry souls back in Lotus, Georgia that they now call home. The home they once escaped becomes a refuge, a peaceful place where they can heal together. The message of the novel is clear. No matter what befalls you, you are a free person who needs to be in charge of your life and not let others be in charge of you. "Look to yourself. you free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you. Seed your own land. You young and a woman and there's serious limitation in both, but you a person too. Don't let Lenore or some trifling boyfriend and certainly no devil doctor decide who you are. That's slavery. Somewhere inside you is that free person I'm talking about. Locate her and let her do some good in the world."

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Fiction Lover's B...: * Home, by Toni Morrison	3	4	Feb 22, 2013 07:56am
DC Public Library: Home, by Toni Morrison	2	13	Feb 07, 2013 09:58am
Book Briefs at The Paris Public Library, on "Home" on October 4, 2012, by Toni Morrison	5	34	Dec 03, 2012 12:00pm
Red River Valley ...: Book Review at the Library	1	5	Oct 04, 2012 09:56pm
OLM . . . Of Lite...: Home is HERE!	5	17	Jun 03, 2012 01:30pm

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About Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison (born Chloe Anthony Wofford), is an American author, editor, and professor who won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature for being an author "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality."
Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed African American characters; among the best k...more

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Quotes from Home

“Whose house is this? Whose night keeps out the light In here? Say, who owns this house? It’s not mine. I dreamed another, sweeter, brighter With a view of lakes crossed in painted boats; Of fields wide as arms open for me. This house is strange. Its shadows lie. Say, tell me, why does its lock fit my key?” — 3 people liked it

“Come on, girl. Don't cry," whispered Frank. "Why not? I can be miserable if I want to. You don't need to try and make it go away. It shouldn't go away. It's just as sad as it ought to be and I'm not going to hide from what's true just because it hurts." Cee wasn't sobbing anymore, but the tears were still running down her cheeks.” — 2 people liked it

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