Lee's review of A Home at the End of the World: A Novel

A Home at the End of the World: A Novel
by Michael Cunningham

Lee's review

rating:

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 ...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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message 1: by Brinda

07/20/2007 07:48AM

wow -- sounds amazing! excellent review -- you sold me. Gonna try and score me a copy!

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Lee's review of A Home at the End of the World: A Novel

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