A Home at the End of the World: A Novel

published	July 1st 2004 by Picador
first published	1990
binding	Paperback
isbn	0312424086 (isbn13: 9780312424084)
ebook
pages	352
description	From Michael Cunningham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours, comes this widely praised novel of two boyhood friends: Jonathan, lonely, int...more [close] From Michael Cunningham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours, comes this widely praised novel of two boyhood friends: Jonathan, lonely, introspective, and unsure of himself; and Bobby, hip, dark, and inarticulate. In New York after college, Bobby moves in with Jonathan and his roommate, Clare, a veteran of the city's erotic wars. Bobby and Clare fall in love, scuttling the plans of Jonathan, who is gay, to father Clare's child. Then, when Clare and Bobby have a baby, the three move to a small house upstate to raise "their" child together and, with an odd friend, Alice, create a new kind of family. A Home at the End of the World masterfully depicts the charged, fragile relationships of urban life today. [close]
date added	10-04-06 edit book

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Lee rated it:

(review of isbn 0312202318)

06/01/07

This book was my introduction to Michael Cunningham, and when I finished it I cried. And then went out and bought everything he'd ever written.

I fell in love with this book. At that time in my life I could relate to its characters and their story in a unique way, but it was also Cunningham's writing: spare, lovely, gorgeously aware of minutiae, devastatingly honest. There is a sadness in his work that fills me with a profound loneliness that I find myself both overwhelmed by and grateful fo...more This book was my introduction to Michael Cunningham, and when I finished it I cried. And then went out and bought everything he'd ever written.

I fell in love with this book. At that time in my life I could relate to its characters and their story in a unique way, but it was also Cunningham's writing: spare, lovely, gorgeously aware of minutiae, devastatingly honest. There is a sadness in his work that fills me with a profound loneliness that I find myself both overwhelmed by and grateful for.

"A Home at the End of the World" tells the story of Jonathan and Bobby, friends since their childhood in Cleveland. Thanks to various family tragedies, Bobby is damaged and strange. Jonathan, raised by a loving family, is naive and kind. The boys become friends, as close as brothers, but the friendship is quickly complicated by the their muddled teenaged libidos. They begin to experiment together sexually.

Embarrassed and confused, they lose touch for years only to reunite in New York. Jonathan is openly gay and living with Clare, an older, quirky single woman. Bobby is still lost, simply wandering. Clare and Jonathan, in the classic gay-man-straight-woman pact, have already agreed to have a baby together, but Clare and Bobby immediately become lovers and Clare quickly becomes pregnant. Pact off. Or so it seems, until the group manages to cobble together a little family and a life of the most patchwork variety.

It's become, in this "Will & Grace" era, a familiar story. But what Cunningham does with the characters is stunning. Bobby's rootlessness and desperate pansexuality in lieu of true love and nurturing is haunting. Jonathan's desire for a "traditional" life (kids, home, security) and the sadness that comes when he sees that life slipping away is heartbreaking. Clare's mix of selfishness and determined independence is compelling. Cunningham manages, beautifully, to shed new light on the old questions: how do we find home and how are we best loved? The answer, according to "A Home at the End of the World" is a refreshing one: we create it ourselves....less

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Kayla rated it:

08/18/08

Read in August, 2008

The characters of "A Home at the End of the World" fall short, repeatedly, of what the readers wants or thinks he needs. But it doesn't matter. Simply put, it doesn't matter a bit. The sound and feel of the book are perfect. This is some of the most beautiful language I have read in months, and some passages were so gorgeous that they warranted a reading out loud. My cat got to hear this choice paragraph, among many others:
"Here is Carlton several months before his death, ...more The characters of "A Home at the End of the World" fall short, repeatedly, of what the readers wants or thinks he needs. But it doesn't matter. Simply put, it doesn't matter a bit. The sound and feel of the book are perfect. This is some of the most beautiful language I have read in months, and some passages were so gorgeous that they warranted a reading out loud. My cat got to hear this choice paragraph, among many others:
"Here is Carlton several months before his death, in an hour so alive with snow that earth and sky are identically white. He labors among the markers and I run after, stung by snow, following the light of his red knitted cap. Carlton's hair is pulled back into a ponytail, neat and economical, a perfect pinecone of hair. He is thrifty, in his way.
We have taken hits of acid with our breakfast juice. Or rather, Carlton has taken a hit and I, considering my youth, have been allowed half. This acid is called windowpane. It is for clarity of vision, as Vicks is for decongestion of the nose. Our parents are at work, earning the daily bread. We have come out into the cold so that the house, when we reenter it, will shock us with its warmth and righteousness. Carlton believes in shocks."
I first read a chapter of this novel in a writing workshop centered on the novel. The story was an example of an excerpt, removed from a book and sent out into the world to see how it, and by default the larger work, would fare. The excerpt was the chapter quoted above. The most beautiful section (and possibly pertinent, if you're judging according to a central, core meaning of the story)of the novel, the chapter was published in "The Best American Short Stories 1987".
The pacing of this story is a bit uneven and the characters, while never convoluted, don't quite seem to satisfy in their actions and timing. However, it does not matter. The language is so clear, the voices of the characters so well-executed, the lands and settings from which the book spring so real, that the story drives itself.
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A Home at the End of the World: A Novel

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