Toni Morrison’s new novel, Home, sees her moving back into the near past, following A Mercy which was set in the sixteenth century. Frank Money, back from the Korean War, finds himself adrift in America, trying to get back to Georgia so he can rescue his younger sister who is in danger there. Through a multi-vocal narrative (different narrators tell us stories that connect in different ways to Frank’s journey) we see refracted the journey of this everyman across intolerant 1950s America. Morrison’s prose is, as ever, subtle and melodic, but not afraid of the darkness – she remains one of the most fearless of American writers.

Home is not a great novel – not in the august company of Beloved or Sula, for instance – and is almost as if Morrison is writing with only three-quarters power. But that still means she’s better than most. The biggest problem with Home is its brevity – this is little more than a short novella, and just as the story was truly beginning it comes crashing to a halt. I think what she has here is a very good novel written in broad-strokes. Opened out, extended, and with fiercer polemic, this could have been very, very good indeed. As it is, it’s merely good, from a writer who can be – and is – one of the best.