Home

Gilead #2

by Marilynne Robinson

Home parallels the story told in Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead. It is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and faith.

Hundreds of thousands were enthralled by the luminous voice of John Ames in Gilead, Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel. Home is an entirely independent, deeply affecting novel that takes place concurrently in the same locale, this time in the household of Reverend Robert Boughton, Ames’s closest friend.

Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack—the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty years—comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain.

Jack is one of the great characters in recent literature. A bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold a job, he is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his traditionalist father, though he remains Boughton’s most beloved child. Brilliant, lovable, and wayward, Jack forges an intense bond with Glory and engages painfully with Ames, his godfather and namesake.

Home is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and faith. It is Robinson’s greatest work, an unforgettable embodiment of the deepest and most universal emotions.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, Book Club, Literature, Religion

333 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 2, 2008

About the author

American novelist and essayist. Across her writing career, Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. In 2016, Robinson was named in Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people. Robinson began teaching at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1991 and retired in the spring of 2016.

Robinson is best known for her novels Housekeeping (1980) and Gilead (2004). Her novels are noted for their thematic depiction of both rural life and faith. The subjects of her essays have spanned numerous topics, including the relationship between religion and science, US history, nuclear pollution, John Calvin, and contemporary American politics.

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-respected retired Presbyterian minister is old and in ill health in a small town in Iowa. He’s a widower with eight children - four boys, four girls. He ran a tight religious ship at home: regular church attendance, grace at every meal, no swearing, etc. Six of the kids ‘did well.’ They married, had kids of their own and are ‘successful.’



[Review below revised 4/14/23]

Even their names say something about them. One daughter, Glory, thinks at some point to this effect: the boys were named after people (mostly Biblical – David, John, Luke); the girls after immaterial things: Faith, Hope, Grace and Glory. (Glory, apparently because Gloria sounded too southern-European; maybe too Catholic.)

But it’s the two children who took other paths – the misfits – who are now living at home taking care of their father. The story centers on the few months or so when they are with their father as his health deteriorates.

In the following, I’m not really giving away any plot – there isn’t much - and we pretty much know all the following near the beginning of the story. I hid a couple of things under spoilers but some SPOILERS remain.

The woman, Glory, late thirties, is back after a long-term unsuccessful affair out of town. She led her family to believe she was married and that it didn’t work out.

The son, Jack, a few years older than Glory, has bigger problems. Ever since he was a kid he was a semi-juvenile delinquent. He had a baby by a local woman out of wedlock. Now he’s an alcoholic and more-or-less a drifter. He may or may not have other women or other kids out of town. He steals and has been in prison, although he’s on his best behavior during the visit. He hasn’t been back home for twenty years, not even coming home for his mother’s funeral. Given the religious theme of the novel, he is truly the prodigal son.

With the human tendency to see the glass half-full, instead of being happy with his successful children, Jack, the alcoholic, totally occupies his father’s mind in his decline. ‘What did I do wrong?’ Other than feeling bad for Gloria that she is ‘sad,’ he pretty much ignores the fact that she is devastated. She feels that she has wasted her life and has no idea what to do next. In the author’s great words: “…the gradual catastrophe of her own venture into the world had come to an end…”

The father says he loves his son and forgives him. Annoyingly, he tells him this just about every day. But we learn this is an intellectual exercise: it is Glory who truly loves and truly forgives her brother.

The only other major character in the book is an elderly neighbor, a Congregational minister, who is a daily visitor to the house. He knew Jack as a wild young boy. He doesn’t fool with forgiveness - he probably hates Jack. But from his strict religious upbringing, Jack knows his Bible and loves to jerk the strings of both his father and the minister neighbor. He’s always bringing up the idea of predestination; in effect, ‘God made me a lying, shiftless alcoholic – how do we deal with that?’

The story is set around the mid-1950s when the civil rights movement began in Montgomery and pictures of police brutality were broadcast on black and white TV. The two ministers come down on the side of law and order and of Eisenhower. Jack sides with the marchers and is a Stevenson man, almost a Marxist.

Although a bit slow in places, I really liked the story. Jack’s behavior as an alcoholic doesn’t seem too realistic compared to ones we know, but this is still a good read. Of the three books I have read by this author, I liked Housekeeping best and I thought Gilead dragged. (I don’t have reviews of those two.) The publisher subtitled this book, Home, as ‘Gilead 2.’ Gilead is the name of the town where the four books are set. So the sequence of the four volumes is 1 Gilead, 2 Home, 3 Lila and 4 Jack.



The author (b. 1943) is best known for Gilead which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005. Homecoming, not part of the Gilead series, is her second most popular book. She wrote a half-dozen novels and a half-dozen non-fiction books including some collections of essays.

Top photo: a house in Iowa City from kcrg.com
The author from oprah.daily.com

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it 'even' POSSIBLE-- that this is one of the BEST FICTION BOOKS ever written about what HOME represents in our lives?/!!! -- the good- the bad- and the ugly? ( even those last three words don't really fit-but it communicates quickly for 'short-review' purposes).

"HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS".....( not always)
"YOU CAN NEVER RETURN HOME"....( sometimes you can)
HOME....has a deep emotional meaning and our memories of....love, life, family opinions and feeling, anger, grief, regrets, betrayal, friendships, joy, religious beliefs, assumptions, forgiveness, judgments and prejudices, foods, books, gardening, secrets, sins, accomplishments, disappointments, finances, illness & hurts, blessings, sadness, on and on.... and it's ALL explored in "HOME".

HOME also represents our success and failures with our PARENTS & SIBLINGS.

HOME provides safety and comfort: ( not always for each family member)

HOME is a way of understanding ourselves and the way the world is constructed around us. ( our egos, our spirituality, our knowledge, our awareness, our integrity, and humanity).

In Marilynne Robinson's "HOME"...I was able to imagine myself being 'each' of the characters. I could imagine being Glory- the young woman who returns home to care for her father--( a temporary refuge from her own problems)--
Or...Jack, the "wrongdoer" - pegged black sheep of the family --
Or...PAPA...Reverend Boughton...sick, old, dying, a widower.
These characters, and minor characters - become real people to us. The dialogue engages us. The writing is beautiful and brilliant and provokes 'looking-within'.

A Wonderful book from which I drew strength!!! 5+++ stars!

Ok... this got a little too long... out the door to walk!!!! I'm retired!!! Lol

[Benjamin Chandler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't think I have ever read a novel that so accurately describes the thoughts and actions and motivations of human beings. There was not one false note in this entire book. People acted in this book how they actually do in real life (at least in my experience). Their feelings of love and anger and self-hate were so acute, I often found myself relating to each character more than once.

Maybe some of this comes from where I am emotionally right now—somewhere teetering between hope and devastation. I am struggling with these two emotions every day, every minute, as are more than one of the characters in this book. Characters who have had their dreams dashed or have never let themselves think they're worthy of having dreams. [I related so much to their feelings, I think I wept during the last 60 pages or so, sentimental cuss that I am.:]

Love, too, finds a prominent place here. The love between a sister and a brother and a father and a son, both relationships I am quite familiar with. The disappointments, the pride, the desire to help, the desire to flee and hide.

The book is written from the viewpoint of Glory, a woman in her late 30s who has returned to her childhood home after a collapsed engagement to care for her elderly father. She is hardworking, caring, but bitter. She feels as though she cannot escape her lot in life, and envies her siblings who all went off and started their own families.

Except for her brother Jack, who disappeared 20 years ago and has suddenly returned home. Jack is aloof, sad, self-deprecating, lost, and confused. He was always the black sheep of the family—the preacher's son who became thief and miscreant. He is constantly haunted by his past actions and his sense of self-worthlessness. Every day is a struggle for him emotionally, and he is blind to see that others may truly love him, regardless of his behavior. It is this Jack who returns home suddenly to spend time with Glory and their father.

Boughton, the father, is a former Presbyterian minister. He vacillates between the blind love of a father to his son and an undeniable fury of the disappointment his son has been. Jack has not only wrestled with moral behavior, but also has become an agnostic (maybe even atheist), wanting to believe in something, but unable to cross that line. This devastates Boughton perhaps more than anything else.

And so, the book follows the weeks in which Jack has appeared and asked to stay with his father and sister, both of whom grow to have changing feelings about Jack's return, switching roles from resentment to familial love.

There were so many themes here that I relished seeing play out between these characters [who are, incidentally, all supporting characters from Robinson's other fantastic book, Gilead:]: love, resentment, redemption, guilt, one's certainty or uncertainty of faith, depression, self-hatred, care, loss, loneliness, hope, and—of course—familial relationships.

Robinson has a clean, clear sense of prose that allows characters to bloom into themselves, revealing deep connections with themselves, their feelings, and the world. Great book.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was an interesting experience for me to read this book, since I have by now not been a member of a church since I was 28 and I am now near 63. Agnostic is how I identify my “religious faith” on Facebook. Depending on whom it is I talk with, I can teeter in different directions. The church I was raised to attend is the (Dutch) Christian Reformed Church, and my pastor was widely seen as the most conservative preacher in the Grand Rapids (MI) area. Every year I lived in my parents' house (yes, one only for 21 years) I was expected to attend two church services each Sunday, and until I figured how to escape some Sunday evening services with my friend Darrell to Russ’s Restaurant, I did so.

I was a pretty sensitive and inquisitive kid who—in part influenced by the various social upheavals of the sixties—began to Question Authority (that very bumper sticker), and by 15 (1968, almost Woodstock!) questioned my conservative, Total Depravity-based Calvinist upbringing by writing questions and concerns on my church bulletins (of which I still have several dozens). I began to “rebel,” though I still attended a tiny Christian College, and began my career as an English teacher in western Michigan Christian high schools, hoping to steer as many of my idealistic young students to follow me in Questioning the nature of True Religion, or, increasingly, just trying to help them figure out spirituality in part through reading and writing.

I married “into the faith” at 21 (!) but by the time I was 28 I had left the church, all traditions associated with it, lost my marriage and my teaching job, and spun a bit out of control for several years. I became the black sheep of my family for reasons I’ll keep private here, but suffice to say that Losing My Religion and the conditions under which I left my marriage severely challenged my family’s support for me. I left the area and never went back. My family was not as conservative as my church was, but they were and still are devout Christians, and though we all love each other as family, I always have this prodigality, this breach, that stands in a way between us.

I encountered the writing of Christian Iowan writer Robinson in my spiraling period. I picked up Housekeeping, read the first page or three, was taken by the quality of the writing immediately—I was in Schuler Books in Grand Rapids, I can recall having the book in my hands—and put it firmly down. I was moving away from this tradition, this kind of writing, someone with roots in the very religious tradition I was leaving. But many, many years later, I picked it up again, and began to read her work seriously. I didn’t know initially whether she wrote novels or tracts, but I always was committed to serious novels, for complexity, toward Doubt, and still am. The anguished Dostoevsky, Graham Greene of The Power and the Glory, and J. M. Coetzee were my models for Serious Literature about spiritual issues.

So I first began reading Robinson with Housekeeping, a strange and wonderful exploration of what I might call madness, though Robinson would never call it that. It’s the story of women living apart at the edge of a small western town. She was writing about women who were different, not fully integrated into society, perhaps strange, even eccentric, but they had their own kind of spiritual strength. She helped me admire these women. The writing is gorgeous and the haunting beauty of it is almost breathtaking at times. It brought me in contact with emotional touchstones that I had been largely missing for decades.

I took some time off after that book but bought all her other books, knowing I would spend some good long time with them, and listen to this woman and see if she had something to say to me. I next read Gilead, which as a prodigal son was in part about a prodigal son, a man, gone twenty years, who returns to Gilead, Iowa to see his real father, Rev. John Boughton, and who also returns to yet another kind of father-figure for him, Rev. Ames, a neighbor. The year is 1956, which doesn’t figure in so much as a time in this book as it does in Home. The struggle about religious traditions, about what insights it might have to offer Jack is fascinating to me, and the story of this returning reprobate—like me?—captured me.

The psychoanalytical literary theorist Shoshana Felman once wrote that the stories that most captivate you are essentially your autobiography, they speak to you and for you, they essentially ARE your story. The story in Gilead is narrated as a letter by the 77 year old Ames to his own very young son, another dimension of this father-son story, and in some ways I felt he was speaking in a fatherly way to me as well as to his young son and his sort of symbolic son, Jack.

So when I learned that Home was the second in the Gilead trilogy, and uniquely, tells of the exact same time period as Gilead but from Rev. Boughton’s daughter Glory’s perspective about her own homecoming at 38, and that of her prodigal brother Jack's homecoming, too, focusing even more on this father-prodigal-son story, I was interested. Glory is the good girl younger sister of bad boy Jack, who after 20 years comes home, as I said. But why? If you like to have answers to questions like that as soon as possible, this is the wrong book for you, because Glory and Jack and their father, who is nearing death, speak very little to each other. They are very careful with each other. Jack ran off once, and he just might do it again. 1/3 of the book passes and they are still just feeling their way with each other, learning to talk with each other in a house where talk of feelings is scarce in that Midwestern way.

The central themes of the book are chiefly theological ones, not surprising in a prodigal son retelling: forgiveness, grace, redemption. I understand them in theological terms—I went to church, I know my Bible, even after all these years—but as an agnostic, I want to translate these concepts into psychological terms somehow, too. What might forgiveness feel like? Can I forgive myself for earlier screw-ups? I'm not expecting others to do so. Is there an analogue to the Christian notion of grace that isn’t just escapism? When I was in free-fall self-destruction for a time, my own father forgave me always; he knew I was screwing up, but he was always there for me, defended me, loved me. That I understand through the lens of this book as grace, as fatherly forgiveness. I experienced self-imposed exile from my family for many years, but it was my exile, not my family’s, not theirs. They never separated themselves from me. I just left and never really went home.

They didn’t excuse me for my wrongs, but they loved me, nevertheless. It’s what family does, at its best, and I hope as a father I am learning this, too. I am sure I caused them shame and anxiety and many sleeplessness nights, but I didn’t think about that so much for a long time. Both father figures Ames and Boughton have trouble communicating their feelings to Jack, but they are essentially all about grace. Jack never has to earn forgiveness. He just gets it from them. In reading this, I came to appreciate my conservative and devout family in a way I hadn’t for years. They had offered me grace and I had rejected that as a fiction, as fantasy, as Jack does in dealing with his family, as badly as he needs it.

My Aunt Florence, the prodigal daughter of my mother’s Dutch Calvinist family—a flapper, an artist, a nudist! And SHE had to go to church THREE times on Sundays, the middle service exclusively IN DUTCH!—once told me she never believed in Hell, and I loved her for that (hoping it was a fiction I might avoid). Jack, in this story, represents the inverse of my Aunt Flossie. Jack may be forgiven by his family, but he can’t forgive himself. He seems to only believe in Hell, in perdition, for all the ways he has sinned. Two times Crime and Punishment’s Raskolnikov is mentioned in this novel, someone who thought he might be able to rise above guilt, but who nevertheless torments himself with it, and this is an interesting way to think about Jack’s view of himself. He’s sorry, he gets the forgiveness he doesn’t seek or feel he deserves from his family, but he can’t forgive himself.

The number of times Jack says “I’m sorry” or the times he expresses regrets for his failings is almost maddening in this novel, but one has to hear it as a form of poetic repetition, a litany, a song of grief. The language is almost thoroughly musical throughout, subtle. And the restraint in this book is amazing. What do you say about people who are so eager not to hurt each other that they say nothing to each other? 1/3 of this book passes before we learn really important information about Jack’s and Glory’s lost decades, and this is a good thing, because when it happens that we hear some detail, it has a kind of electric effect (I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but trust Robinson).

Jack was always in trouble as a kid, and he left Gilead 20 years ago, without explanation, missed his mom’s funeral, everything. It’s not until the end, in a huge (for me) emotional finish, that we get a little better picture of what has gone on. Secrets! Glory and Jack keep secrets. Yes, we look mostly at Jack in the story, but we learn Glory has her own undisclosed history, which becomes slowly revealed. Are they reprobate? Maybe, in religious terms, but as we get to know them, that’s not how we see them, as bad people. But they are lost, and mostly lost to themselves. It’s Glory’s cooking that maybe takes a central place in mooring the scenes to family, to traditions, but she is in some ways as unmoored as Jack is.

It isn’t until well into the book that the old man is seen as having a position on racial politics of the time that separates himself from Jack (and us). We like the old man, we sympathize with his pain of separation from his wayward, missing son, and we admire his typically gracious treatment of Jack, but we also begin to see some of the wedges he has created. Other family members come in to the story, slowly, so we can see Rev. Boughton’s point about the importance of family. You can’t live with family, and you can’t live without it. And the same goes for the notion of home in this book. You can't go home again, and you can never leave.

This is a meditation on forgiveness and grace, and it is also a meditation on fathers and sons. I am a son of a now dead father who is with me in a sense every day, in my interactions with my own sons. I appreciated the scenes where Jack plays catch with Rev. Ames’s young son Robby, Jack having lost a baby daughter in his youth. Fatherhood is a key theme in the book. God the Father is part of this father theme, too, as one might expect, though I don’t see it as preachy or too religious.

Does this book sound a little too pious and conventional for you? Maybe it is. But I challenge you to check out one of Robinson’s books. This novel, as part of a four novel tale, would be a good place to start. Housekeeping doesn’t deal with religion at all, and its not in this series, so maybe that’s a better one for most of you. But what might you like about Gilead/Home? The characters, so carefully and lovingly etched, including the anguished Jack, smiling that awkward smile in his despair, prodding his own scars, the anguished Rev. Boughton, and his dutiful and equally anguished daughter, Glory. All of them are too often all too caught up in small town propriety, maybe, but then they break free from those strictures.

But it’s the language, each sentence powerfully constructed, and the storytelling, with its narrative symmetries throughout, that sets Robinson apart. Passionate symmetries, design echoing a larger design for the universe, perhaps. But if you think as a non-religious person that Jack is somehow diminished in any way by the Gilead faithful, or by Robinson herself, you are wrong. Robinson loves these people, and like Rev. Boughton of his son, maybe Robinson loves her Jack the very most. She understands him as much as she understands any of the characters in the book.

I was very moved by this book. We all have those skeletons, maybe. Unresolved issues. Maybe this is useful for getting at those. Was for me. And some of the scenes! The scene where Glory finds Jack in the barn later in the book is as anguished and powerful a scene as I have experienced in a novel lately. But then, I repeat, the book is about me as much as it is about Jack.

Lila, the title of the third book in the trilogy, is Rev. Ames’s young wife. She’s the least educated, the most intuitive, and she speaks insightfully and with common sense in the midst of all these smart, articulate readers of literature, theology, the Bible. The third book in the Gilead trilogy has Lila narrate. I'm so in.

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

If you’ve read Gilead or Lila the characters will be familiar, but yet the story is told from a different perspective. The focus of this story is on Jack Boughton, the wayward son of retired minister, the aging Robert Boughton. Jack returns home to Gilead, seeking an understanding of himself, seeking answers to the question of whether or not he is worthy of redemption, of perhaps starting a new life in this old place he once called home with a woman he loves. The story is told through the point of view of Glory, his younger sister who has also returned to Gilead to care for her ailing father. It isn’t just Jack who carries burdens of the past. Robert wonders what kind of father he has been, especially to Jack. Glory has had a bad relationship and is burdened by having deceived her family.

John Ames, Reverend Boughton’s best friend, also a minister, and his wife Lila play a role in the novel. By its very nature, this is about religion and there are discussions of scripture, discussions of predestination and salvation. In spite of that, I didn’t find this to be “preachy”. There are also discussions of things happening in the world with political discussions between Ames and Boughton. Jack brings to the table discussions about racism in the country, which is something that has impacted his life. As with Robinson’s other novels, I found this to be a beautifully written novel about family, about regrets over the past, over a life not lived fully. A sad and meaningful story.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update November 2025. I cannot say anything about this book that I haven't already said. It is a book I will treasure having read for all of my life.

**********************
Original review:

5+ stars. The hope that I will find a book like this one is the reason I read.

Home. A word that conveys so many different meanings that for each person it is as individual as a fingerprint. For Jack Boughton, it is a place he has run from, longed for, and never quite fit into. For his sister, Glory, it is a place she loves, wishes to escape from, but knows she will be tied to all of her life. Thomas Wolfe told us “you can never go home again”, Marilynne Robinson seems to say you can never leave home at all.

As complicated as the concept of Home is, forgiveness might be even more complicated. God dispenses grace and calls for man to forgive, but can man truly forgive? The two venerable pastors in this novel, Robert Boughton and John Ames, certainly talk about forgiveness as though it is something they understand and aspire to, but neither of them seems capable of true forgiveness. Robert can never look beyond the past to see the man Jack truly is, and, because Jack is his namesake, Ames counts every trespass as an affront to his good name. Neither of them is able to embrace the change in Jack. They look at the man, but they always and forever see the boy.

Glory, who has always struggled to understand who her elusive brother Jack was, is the one person who is able to look at who he is without flinching. She offers hope in what feels like a pretty hopeless situation. If there is a home to come to for Jack, Glory embodies it.

We wonder why the past cannot be purged, when the present and the future are so tenuous. Why is Jack back, after all these years, to endure this endless flogging? Like Robert Frost’s hired man, Jack knows ‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.’ But, he is hoping the truth will lie in ‘I should have called it something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’

Robinson says, "Weary or bitter or bewildered as we may be, God is faithful. He lets us wander so we will know what it means to come home." But that implies a sweetness in the homecoming that eludes these characters no matter how they try to have it otherwise.

If you come from a perfect family in which the members have always understood and loved one another, you might not register the impact of this story. If you come from a family who have loved one another, but always found understanding one another difficult, it might be like looking in a mirror. If you have ever felt outside in places that you know should have been your comfort zone, Jack will resonate with you, and if you have ever had a sibling that you loved but felt estranged from, Jack will make you cry.

I loved Robinson’s Gilead. I built my own backstory for Jack Boughton and thought I had a fair idea of who Glory and Robert were. I was anxious to know more about those characters, but what I got in Home was so much more than I could ever have imagined. Seeing Ames side of the story, and then Jack’s, was so revealing about the character of human beings, how often we view life only in the context of what it means to us, for us, when the motivation of the other person can be so different and not about “us” at all.

I am on to Lila and the final leg of this journey. I highly recommend this series to everyone who wants to grapple for a little while with the larger questions in life. Not good vs. evil, but man’s incapacity to sort good from evil, to understand the depths of the human heart, to touch another man’s soul. Glory asks Jack what he thinks the soul is, perhaps that is the question for all of us and to know the answer to our own soul we must try to understand someone else’s.

As for home, I leave you with this thought from Marilynne Robinson:

"Home. What kinder place could there be on earth, and why did it seem to them all like exile? Oh, to be passing anonymously, through an impersonal landscape! Oh not to know every stump and stone, not to remember how the fields of Queen Anne’s lace figured in the childish happiness they had offered to their father’s hopes."

Oh to carry no past, to have no hurts, no scars, no disappointments, no calamitous youth to haunt your present. Oh to be perfect and not need forgiveness, or perhaps to only be perfect enough to be able to forgive.

[Dolors · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Home” is not a sequel to “Gilead”, it is a story that lapses at the same time but told from a different perspective. In fact, this novel could easily be read as a treatise about family, a sort of rich catalog of the varied ways in which a father can hurt a son, a brother can hurt a sister, or vice versa, precisely because they love each other. It’s a sad story about miscommunication and failed good intentions wasted over the years that lead to an anticlimactic peak of boundless frustration.

The Prodigal Son Jack Boughton, returns home after twenty years of absence.
A drunk, a thief, a man of disreputable character, problematic since his childhood days, he returns to a dying father and his saintly sister Glory, who is taking care of him.
Theological meditations and moral dilemmas become the still frame of every unsuccessful attempt at conversation between the members of the Boughton family. Old Reverend Boughton is bitterly disappointed in his son but his love for him is unconditional, and following his religious beliefs, he treats him with deference and kindness, forgiving his transgressions even before he has time to commit them.
Jack senses his father’s wariness in his tentative approaches, and his frail recovery is dampened by the painful memories of past mistakes that were too grave to be obviated. He stops believing in himself the moment he is welcomed by his family.
Glory witnesses the slow deterioration of both men while her own suffering goes unaccounted for, taken for granted by her father and condescendingly petted by her reprobate brother.
There is no action to speak of, or unexpected turns in this quiet, evocative book. Told in confessional first person, the narrative voice acquires a universal dimension that transcends the thoughts and emotions of the characters, reaching the core of the reader, regardless of his familiarity with the religious currents, Presbyterian or Congregationalist, that flood this novel.

Robinson plays with the idea that family should be like an invisible paradise, that home should be the place one can always return to, a safe haven to mend before heading back into the world.
Reality is much more complicated, and human nature is an intricate tangle of resentment, guilt and inconsistence that can’t be tamed by spiritual piety.
Amidst the subtle elegance of Robinson’s accomplished style, amidst the reflective quality of her exploration of family, faith and redemption, I couldn’t help but sense the acute sting of judgment, not only of poor Jack, who can’t forgive himself, but also for those who seek for answers beyond the realm of piety.
Even though I felt like a kind of outsider by the end of the novel, even though I can’t identify with Robinson’s views on grace and forgiveness, I can’t ignore the mastery of her writing and her capacity to elevate the ordinary to the divine.
Going back home might not be what we all expected, what we need after all, but maybe it’s the only thing we can do. Regardless.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, what can I say about this one? Let's keep it short: I don't understand why Marilynne Robinson hasn't been accorded the Nobel Prize for Literature yet. If it's possible for a hermetic writer like Jon Fosse, why not for her? Because that should be clear: Robinson is not for everyone. To begin with, there is the intensity of her novels, and certainly this one: when you start it, it is as if you are forced to jump on an already fairly speeding train; she assumes that you can just go along with the story, and if you can't (and almost by definition you can't) then you have to piece it together as you go. That was the case with the first Gilead novel (just Gilead), and also with this second one. It starts when Jack Boughton, the black sheep of the family, returns to his parental home in Gilead after 20 years, where only his father, the old, ailing Reverend Robert Boughton, is still living and where his youngest sister Glory has recently moved back in (it remains unclear why for a long time).

That intensity is also due to Robinson's themes: they are heavy-handed, existential, deeply psychological. In this case it revolves around guilt and penance, forgiving and grace, and above all predestined damnation. Because Jack in particular has quite a lot to account for. And inevitably with Robinson we find ourselves in the Calvinist universe, another thing that doesn't really make the reading easier. In particular, the discussions between Boughton and his neighbor John Ames, that other old minister we know from Gilead #1, require some theological and philosophical baggage.

Why then my relatively high score of 4 stars? Well, for starters because this is the best prodigal son story I have ever read: not the simple version of the festive return, all forgiven and done, no, this return is accompanied by layers of very varied feelings that are constantly being deepened, tested, and becoming more layered as the story progresses. Secondly, because Robinson's psychological drawing through dialogues, introspection and minimalist observation testifies to an enormous knowledge of human nature and an empathetic feeling for the infinite complexity of the human existence. The interaction between Jack and Glory in particular is of an almost unbearable sensitivity.

And thirdly, because this book is also about 'home' and what that means for people injured by life, both in a positive and negative sense. This theme also includes the ambiguous position of the old Boughton, whose genuine joy at the return of his problem child(ren) certainly arouses sympathy, but who is also repulsive by his patriarchal nature, the towering father figure who willingly and/or unwittingly still controls the life of his children. Having raised 4 children myself (of course, with my wife), I have to concede this hit close to home (pun intended); it made me ponder on the emotionally laden nature of abstract concepts as 'home' and 'fatherhood'.

Enough arguments? Sure! And I haven't even mentioned the subtle and refined style, the balanced composition of this book, and the mirror-effect in regard to Gilead #1. No, please Stockholm, she is 80 now, don't wait any longer.

[CK · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. I had a good, long weep after finishing it. But that's not why I love it. I've been sitting here trying to analyze exactly why I love it so much but words are failing me — and you know that never happens. So here goes. Her other books are also wonderful, but this one makes me sure that Marilynne Robinson is one of the greatest writers alive today. That it is original is an understatement. I could talk about how I think she's establishing a new literary genre, but the truth is, I don't really know enough to talk like that — even if I heartily suspect that my great-grandchildren will be studying her in their literature classes. I only know the effect her work has on me. It's breathtaking, heartbreaking and alarming like nothing I've ever read before; and at the same time piercingly subtle, humble, gentle and wonderful. It horrifies me before I even know I'm being horrified, when I think I'm safe. Like watching dust motes float in the sunshine streaming in through a quiet window and suddenly understanding what it means to be human.

I can see how some people would read this book (or her other two) and be bored, or just not get it. Her words command a sort of attention that's not common these days, and that takes some energy; and on the surface, the plot progresses slowly and seems quite benign. But the wonder of these stories! The gut-wrenching power of them. Each story is bigger than the sum of its parts. Her work is entirely and gloriously subversive, in the best sense. In Home, she takes what seems to be a bucolic tale of a small town, drenched in subtle family dynamics and old-time religion, and turns it into a tale of hopeless human depravity and extraordinary, confounding redemption. But it's not gothic. There are no apocalyptic visions, no supernatural interventions, no blood and violence. It's not epic or modernist, either — and despite all of the religious overtones (and undertones), it's not a morality tale, not at all. Her characters are unassuming. The settings are modest. There aren't any freaks, despots, heroes or villains. How does she pull it off? She doesn't rely on any of the tricks or shocking contrasts that other writers use to make the reader feel the horror and weight of the problem at hand. It looks like pottery, but feels like gold; heavy, spare, significant, rich.

Home is not just a companion piece to Gilead; it surpasses Gilead. Gilead was a preparation, a working-up-to-this-one. Interesting, now, to think about Gilead in light of Home — perhaps it is not as innocuous as I originally thought. I may have to re-read it. With each novel, Robinson's work progresses and opens further and deeper and sends out creeper vines into as-yet unexplored literary territory. Like the best sort of art.

[William2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of a Christian family and how it negotiates the slow fade of its patriarch, the Reverend Robert Boughton. Add to that the recent jilting of daughter Glory who has suffered humiliations from a married man. And the life gone wrong of son Jack, a troublemaker and petty thief since boyhood, now the prodigal son returned.

The sad thing to see is how locked they all are into their conceptions of sin, transgression, dishonor. One wishes they could lighten up, especially old Boughton. But their moral views are set in stone, and this is the context in which the reader must accept them. Otherwise why read this excellent novel?

Jack Boughton is the family scapegrace: “…the weight on the family’s heart, the unnamed absence, like the hero in a melancholy tale.” (p. 42) The failing pastor’s love for the reformed rogue Jack is heartbreaking almost on a line by line basis.

There are things I don’t understand about families. Like the yearning need on the part of some family members to know how another—Jack, for instance—is doing. Deprived of those status reports some family members, like old pastor Boughton, are tormented and abject, as if he has failed as a parent. This is an element of dysfuction many families go through. Some parents react viscerally to being purposefully excluded from the lives of their children.

But even such a kind pastor must meet his own moment of moral failure. The story is set ca. 1960. The Birmingham Campaign is underway. Sadly, the old pastor sees the demonstrators as base provocateurs. He has no clue about their suffering. It’s an incomprehensible ugliness he turns away from. Jack understands, though, and his refutation of his father’s ignorance is bracing and satisfying.

If you admired Gilead, as I did, and Lila, I think there’s a good chance you’ll love this one, too. There’s also a new novel by Robinson, her most recent. It’s called Jack.

PS: My partner just read Home and wept profusely.

[Schmacko · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is simply beautiful and heartbreaking.

I started getting emotional, tears started welling up on page 26, when I read this about a sister awaiting her prodigal brother’ homecoming after twenty years of his absence:

"Glory had her own hopes, which were also too high – that this visit would happen at all, that it would be interesting, and that Jack would not remember her as the least tolerable, the most officious, the least to be trusted of all his brothers and sisters. She thought and hoped he might not remember her at all."

I wish I could encourage everyone to read this book; I wish I had the ability to write about how profound and wondrous and sad this book is. Most people won’t read this book, because they just don’t read. Some will dislike this story’s religious overtones. They’ll also notice it’s a small domestic tale set in southwestern Iowa. And then they’ll say there are no car crashes, eviscerations, pirates, alien monsters, superpowers, and murders; no raping, pillaging and plundering to keep them turning pages.

Home is simply a story about family, about feeling a foreigner in your own house, about forgiveness and gentleness and grace. It’s the third book by an author who won the Pulitzer a few years ago for the small book Gilead. Gilead – set in the mid 1950s - was about John Ames, a dying minister, an old groom writing letters as an inheritance to his unexpected, young son. In these letters, Reverend Ames tells his young son about three generations of Ames ministers. There was the violently abolitionist grandfather (who fought and lost and eye in the Kansas Wars), his pacifist father (who refused to serve in WWI), and then his own place in this progeny. Gilead is the name of their small fictional town. It was a book that required patience but rewarded with poetry, sensibility, and mercy.

Home is the other side of that same story. Ames’ best friend since they were eight was a Presbyterian minister Robert Boughton. Boughton had eight kids, one who he named after Ames. This son, Jack (as he asks to be called) is the black sheep of the Boughton clan, but he is also the most loved. He was a petty thief, a vandal, and a loner. When he was in college, he came home and got a sixteen-year-old pregnant and then abandoned her and his own family, running away not to be heard from for twenty years.

When Jack does return - rough, bone-thin, and hung over – he finds his dad is dying. The old minister is being watched after by the youngest daughter, Glory, who is trying to hide that her eight-year engagement has ended in abandonment. (The book is told with special attention to Glory’s perspective.) Together, Glory and Reverend Boughton try to make Jack feel at home in the home he always felt alien in. They try to practice Christian grace, and they try to help this prodigal son plagued by his own ghosts, his unmet hopes, criminal behavior, alcoholism, depression, and his self-loathing.

That’s about all I could tell you. The rest, if you have the patience (there are no chapters, just small divided sections, for all 314 pages), is filled with small-town events and heart-breaking revelations.

I will admit, I am from southern Iowa, in the same area of Robinson’s fictional town of Gilead. Like Jack, I am also from a large family, and I am the black sheep, the one who never felt at home in his parents’ house. I understand Jack’s want to belong, and yet an entire lifetime of family history has informed him that he is different from his many brothers and sisters; I understand when he states that he wished he could just walk through the door and be as comfortable as his siblings did, doing homework at the table, belonging. I also know the quiet and merciful religiosity of Home, the grace that tries to reach Jack and help him not knowing that its beauty and generosity only makes him feel less deserving and more foreign.

I cried a lot while reading Home. I still am, trying to tell you about it.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

“You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forgive, you defend yourself against the possibility of understanding.”

Home is a novel about forgiveness and understanding in which self-forgiveness seems to come the hardest to its characters. Set in Iowa in 1956, Home serves as a companion piece to Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gilead which centers upon the reflections of Congregationalist minister John Ames. In Home, Robinson focuses on his best friend Robert Boughton, a Presbyterian minister, and his family, who also reside in the town of Gilead.
Reverend Boughton is the father of eight children, six of whom have left the nest and live conventionally successful lives. At the book’s outset, Boughton’s wife has passed away, and he is old and ailing. His youngest daughter, Glory, an unmarried woman in her late thirties, has come home to care for him. Boughton desperately wants to reconcile with his son, Jack, the family ne’er do well who he hasn’t seen in twenty years. Jack was a “difficult “child. Bright but rebellious, he engaged in petty theft and impregnated a poor local girl before he left town. Home centers on Jack, the prodigal son’s return and evolving relationship with his father, his sister Glory, as they come to terms with themselves and each other.

Home is a character study that is beautifully and compassionately written. I listened to the book on audio and would recommend this format.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It expresses the will of God to sustain us in this flesh, in this life. Weary or bitter or bewildered as we may be, God is faithful. He lets us wander so we will know what it means to come home.”

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is a “home?” Can you ever go “home?” I am a bit confounded by my attempts to write a review of this novel.

When Benjamin Franklin said “A house is not a home….” he was concerned with a place that provided “food and fire for the mind as well as the body.” I am not sure how Marilynne Robinson would make the distinction between the two but she gives us many clues.

"Twenty years was long enough to make a stranger of someone she had known far better than this brother of hers, and here he was in her kitchen, pale and ill at ease and in no state to receive the kindness prepared for him, awaiting him, even then wilting and congealing into the worst he could have meant by the word “lunch.” And what an ugly word that was anyway."

"Did she choose to be there, in that house, in Gilead? No, she certainly did not. Her father needed looking after, and she had to be somewhere, like every other human being on earth. What an embarrassment that was, being somewhere because there was nowhere else for you to be. All those years of work and nothing to show for it. But you make the best of things."

Home explores the dynamics of the Boughton family in rural Iowa during the 1950s. All the children have grown up and left the house they were raised in. Their mother has died. Their father, a minister now retired, is “getting on” and needs some help to get downstairs for meals (he can’t prepare on his own) and upstairs to bathe and sleep. His daughter, Glory, is persuaded to come back (she has no husband or children) and be the caregiver.

Eventually, she is joined (soon after this book begins) by her “prodigal” brother, Jack. When they were growing up Jack was both a truant and thief. He says that he felt he never fit in and that the house they lived in was not a home for him. Glory feels her obligations to the family but also feels “trapped.”

The boys all had conventional names such as John or Theodore while the girls were named Faith, Hope, Grace and Glory. There certainly seems to be an imbalance in the expectations of the parents had of their children. Some of that was by gender. Other parts of that expectation were determined by behavior. Glory gave in to the expectation that, since she was the only one of the sibling women who was not married, she should be the one to come back and take care of her father.

As the story unfolds the characters begin to reveal or share the secrets that have colored the choices they made and their assumptions about each other. Most of this takes place in one of the downstairs rooms of the Boughton house or on the porch or in the garden or barn. An underlying theme is how much each person wishes things to be different or the same and what they will do to assure that outcome. The book could easily be rewritten as a drama for the stage.

The characters are well-drawn. The story is rich with drama. Perhaps, if I had read Gilead, Robinson’s first book about this corner of Iowa, I would feel that I understood more about these people and my empathy would have been greater. Most of the story is told from Glory’s perspective and because of that the reader is encouraged to identify with her. I guess in the 1950s it might have been that a daughter with “limited prospects” would be expected to come home and become caregiver. (Given that, it is also not a surprise that her father wanted her name to be Charity.) Yet, I kept waiting for her to express more of what she really wanted to do either at the moment of the story or after her father’s eventual death.

My spouse I believe would give Home that 5th star and I can’t fault her for doing so.

[Lynne King · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hate to say this as it sounds so trite and I’m certainly not religious but this is indeed one of those novels that has been touched by the hand of grace. Marilynne Robinson in her unique inimitable way has produced a sublime work that exquisitely captures the life of Reverend Boughton and his children Glory and Jack. This novel encapsulates the ideals of family life and solidarity regardless of what becomes of them and what is so touching is that Jack, the wayward son, who did everything out of sync, be it theft, drunkenness, etc. still retained the love of his father and even greater than Jack’s other siblings. The book actually quite overwhelmed me in this sense of forgiveness and yet of love in Reverend Boughton’s waiting and waiting for his wayward son, his doubts and misgivings and finally when Jack returns, well it was worth it.

As Reverend Boughton’s life draws to a close, his long suffering daughter Glory is close by his side, easing him through this troubled time but his lifeline is Jack, his mercurial child but still so loved.

This is not a fast moving book but one to be deliciously savoured as a good Medoc. Hidden aspects are constantly uncovered and the lyrical writing of Robinson, especially her descriptions, adds such beauty that will not be seen again for a long time.

There’s such a spirit of place about this book. Glory, who had loved her brother as a child, now finds him difficult but slowly they develop a mutual love and it is rather splendid to see.

I consider Jack comparable to the elusive kingfisher with its fleeting appearance above the river bank, the flash of electric blue that brings that magical aspect, be it somewhat ephemeral to a human somehow but it nevertheless manages to project the soul of Jack, despite his misdemeanors into a powerful personality not to be reckoned with.

It’s also interesting to see how Jack’s relationship with Reverend Boughton’s closest friend, the Reverend John Ames develops. Plus the latter’s rather unique wife Laila, a former itinerant and now fully ensconced into the church and yet, despite her happy contented life, she remains unsettled. She views her much loved elderly husband and knows that she will see his burial and then, perhaps the bird of paradise will escape from her gilded cage that has so suited her for the moment. She doesn’t know. It is delightful to see John Ames face as he observes his wife. It is as though he will never know what she will project and he continues to be entranced by her...Touching.

A remarkable and sobering book. Much loved by me and to be reread many times.

[ZaRi · Rating 2 out of 5]

شاید مرزبندی در ادبیات کار چندان درستی نباشد اما هر کس در این دنیا میتواند علایق خود را دنبال کند.به عنوان یک علاقه مند به دنیای کتاب ،هرگز ادبیات داستانی آمریکا جز انتخابهای اول من نبوده و نیست. هرچقدر سیر و سفر در فضای آکادمیک و مقالات نویسندگان امریکایی برای من لذتبخش است به همان اندازه دنیای داستانی نویسندگانش برایم غریب می نماید.در مورد مریلین رابینسون هم همین است؛ترجیح میدهم بیشتر قلم او را در مقاله های او دنبال کنم تا در داستانهایش." خانه" را خواندم و گذاشتمش جایی میان کتابهای دیگر؛البته آن کتابهایی که احتمالن تا مدتهای زیادی سراعشان نخواهم رفت...

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

A perfect companion to the awful Gilead.

Again, it is well-written, and the main character has a lot more to offer, being the lost son of the preacher's friend. He comes home and tries to live up to the moral and religious standards of his family, and the story could have been really good if Christian absolute truth hadn't been imposed on the main character and reader alike ALL THE TIME. I found myself yelling at the poor sinful son: "If you say SORRY just once more, I will throw this book out the window!"

"Sorry", he answered, and the book went back to the library.

I finished it, but apart from the relief that the main character leaves his old home again in the end, it wasn't very rewarding. The old ideas win, over and over again, they are able to destroy the energy and will to live of those who can't embrace the doctrines of righteousness and complete and utter boredom.

[Ned · Rating 5 out of 5]

This hit me right in the heart. The characters are so deep and finely drawn, yet never overstated, always with the subtle threads of their actions and the revealing dialogue. I grew up in similar climes, in smallish towns in the Midwest, where it all happens. Robinson treats believers with great respect; she recapitulates their quiet and earnest struggles with truth, god and mortality in a special way. There’s not a lot of plot here, in fact some might find this absolutely dry and plodding. But I know these people, they are mine, and they are true. The “good” daughter, Glory, youngest of eight, returns to take care of her aging father, the former reverend. He is still preternaturally bereft of his one lost sheep, his troubled son Jack, who suddenly appears. Glory and Jack thus find themselves in middle age, stuck in their childhood home together with their father in a final struggle to understand each other, and time is running out. The father’s health is failing and Jack is returning after 20 years of total absence, not even showing for his mother’s funeral. There’s a lifetime of fresh tension to unpack here, and the history is revealed slowly and cleverly as the estranged try to make sense of “home” and family. Jack is a seeker, but he does not find, and his tragedy permeates the lives of the others, and the extended family, plus his father’s best friend (the protagonist in the first story, Gilead).

Robinson builds this slowly, almost in an old-fashioned way, but with deft writing and relentless honesty. It’s a beautiful and tragic story, and how it turns out is totally unpredictable (my favorite type of novel). It takes on the biggest questions of predestination and the essential goodness of God. I could relate the mental contortions of Jack, who knows the bible far better than his father and his father’s friend, and shyly takes them to task in a way that disturbs them deeply. His intelligence and wit is tragically lost on his sense of failure, keeping him on the edge of alcoholism and senseless petty crime. The first book, Gilead, introduces the fearful Jack as a sinister force – but Home shows the true character of this fated figure who can’t find redemption and can’t escape the judgment of those he loves. There is a kinship in the brother and sister, but both are nervous and awkward, despite only having each other to confide in.

This book may make you cry, the desperate gaunt Jack who can’t find love, his sister who laments her inability to help him, and the father who cannot pull his one failure back into the fold. I underlined so many great passages. This is the second in a series and it makes me want to go back to the first to see what I missed. If the third (Lila) is like the first two, the triad will be like one beautiful epic. It’s the kind of story and writing that makes me love to read. There’s goodness and heartache and all the things we experience, and told artfully and, most importantly, honestly. There aren’t many books like this in the world.

[Jr Bacdayan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had this unmistakable feeling of sunshine while I read this soulful novel. I always felt as though I was reading it in the morning, just at that exact moment when the majestic rays of the rising sun feel most wonderful. Not too hot, not too bright, just right. It was radiant, I felt like it gave a stir to my bones, an energy of some sort, a source of strength. It's funny really, because the book treads on a slow, probably careful albeit graceful pace. It would probably have been a five-star, had it not spent much time serving the appetizer before getting to the main course. Mind you, though, this appetizer is really most delectable. It's one of those stories that graph a flat line till the much awaited climax. What's interesting to note is that Madame Robinson writes with a rich and resonant tone that nullifies the evenness and stagnancy of the tale. I was conscious of the slow progress, yet I never once felt bored.

This novel is a meditation on human capacity. It questions the limits of our ability to forgive. It delves into the cracks of our self-control. It wallows in the nature of empathy and the reasons behind it. It measures the distance that unrequited love will walk. It examines regret and why we do things that lead to it. And it presents us with the reality that self-destruction isn't limited to the destruction of one's self. That the shrapnel of destruction reaches those people that care for you, that love you, that you destroy them as well.

Religion plays an important part in this story. The tale actually revolves around the estranged family of a reverend. So as can be expected, theology is used as medium when looking through the problems aforementioned. To my unbelieving comrades, no worries, an unbelieving son equalizes the playing field. He is often playfully sarcastic to the point of heresy. Doctrines are questioned and scriptures are misused, but he means well. It was one of the most important moments for me when the unbelieving son says he doesn't quite believe, but he understands.

“It is possible to know the great truths without feeling the truth of them.”

We all have differences of opinion, it should not be our aim to convert others to our view but rather to make them understand. Coming from a very religious family, I am quite different in my views with them. I still believe in God, but I am not one with certain things they believe in, especially those that appear rather dogmatic, but I understand why they believe such things and I respect it. Enough about me. Now, there are especially interesting discussions about the soul, grace, perdition, predestination, standard controversial theology. But it provides these, this spirituality in a certain light that doesn't glare at those who read it. It suffuses this spirituality with humanity that feels natural, in a way. It feels almost personal.

Yet at the heart of it all, this is about healing and hope in the very place of the ones we hold dear, family.

All this set in the midst of a very normal, some would say boring, life. But that's reality, life isn't filled with surprises, plot twists, and sudden reveals. Life is often repetitive, a cycle on a day-to-day basis, minor in its alterations. The greatness of Marilynne Robinson lies with the fact that she writes such breath-taking novels based on this normalcy, this circularity that many of us hate. She opens our eyes on the potential beauty of real life. Her language is evanescent yet elegant, suffusing richness and familiarity that really feels, in a way, homely. The simplicity of it all, both prose and plot, is its strength, enriching and enlivening the reader. In this way, the novel is as real as it gets. It feels so genuine, thus having the rare power of producing tears in the most commonplace events. I remember being reduced to pieces by a joke, a simple joke. This master-work touched me countless of times, especially in the latter half of it. It is rarely acknowledged, but there are a great many books that are self-conscious of their produced melancholy, books that beg you to well-up and cry a river. We are often aware of these things, yet can't still help ourselves. Oh, the drama. But, I assure you this is not of those kinds.

This will warm your heart, fill your body with joy, your thoughts with appreciation, with a certain grace, with that fleeting feeling of faith, maybe not in God, but in life. That it goes on. That there's always hope. That redemption is always at hand no matter what.

"There's so much to be grateful for..."

[Kuszma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Az irodalom szereti az erős témákat. És mi erősebb téma, mint a családon belüli erőszak, a bántalmazás, a gyermekek kiszolgáltatottsága – nem csoda, hogy annyi jól-rosszul kidolgozott variáció született rá a kortárs prózában az utóbbi évtizedekben. Robinson mintha ennek a trendnek az inverzét írta volna meg: itt nem az agresszió nyomorít, hanem a szeretet nehezedik olyan súllyal az emberre, hogy azt nem képes elviselni. Jack, a Boughton család fekete báránya húsz év után tér vissza Gileadba, hogy tegyen egy rémült kísérletet… mire is? Hogy megszerezze apja bocsánatát? De hát az öreg Boughton folyton megbocsát, nincs ezzel gond. Ám mit kezdjen az ember a más bocsánatával, ha magának nem tud megbocsátani?

Marilynn Robinson központi problémája talán az, hogy mitől bűnös az ember. Hogy mi is az: rossznak lenni. Nála ez nem valamilyen tulajdonság, hanem épp bizonyos tulajdonságokra való képtelenség – gyakran egyszerűen annyi, hogy nem tudjuk elfogadni a szeretetet, a bizalmat. Berzenkedünk ellene. Zavart konoksággal térünk ki előle, szinte törekszünk arra, hogy csalatkozzanak bennünk, mert azzal is igazolva látjuk azt, amit magunkról gondolunk: hogy érdemtelenek vagyunk mások megbecsülésére. Ki lehet törni ebből? Levethetjük a bőrünket, mielőtt késő lesz, és elszalasztjuk az utolsó alkalmat is?

Kérdőjelek. Most ilyen kérdőjeles mondataim vannak. Talán mert Robinson sem válaszolni akar, csak kérdezni.

Csendes, lassan hömpölygő regény. Csodálatos szöveg. Talán a legszebb, amit az esendőségről valaha írtak.

[Laysee · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Home” is set in Gilead, Iowa, of the sunflowers. It tells the story of “greying children” taking care of their “ancient father”. Glory, aged 38, the youngest of 6 children, returned home to live with her father, the Reverend Robert Boughton, after her marriage fell apart. Her brother, Jack, who had a reputation of being a scoundrel also returned home from his wandering and bitterness after 20 years. Both were unprepared to encounter a father so sad and old. Robinson wrote with empathic appreciation of the struggles familiar to individuals coming to terms with the infirmities of aging, the pain of care giving, and the heartache of loving people closest to oneself. One of the questions that emerged for me as I read this novel was: Why does caring for someone hurt so much? Robinson astutely captured the pathos and irony of home – “What kinder place could there be on earth, and why did it seem to them all like exile?” Indeed, “Home” poses a few hard questions. For Jack, the question is: How does a person live out the rest of one's life when one has done something terrible and it cannot be undone? There are no answers to such questions.

“Home” is a novel one should read after “Gilead”. In Gilead, Jack Boughton was perceived from the perspective of the Reverend Ames as an incorrigible trouble maker whom he feared would corrupt his wife and young son. In Home, Robinson afforded a fresh set of lenses that allowed us to see Jack in a different light. It’s all about perspective. Despite the roguishness we’ve come to expect of Jack, we now see him unlacing his father's shoes and carrying him to bed. We also see him struggling to come home to himself, a bone-weary man conscious of negative public opinion, trying desperately to redeem himself in his father's eyes. It is also extremely disquieting that a child like Jack brought up in a seemingly God-fearing family could be made to feel like a misfit even though he was his father’s most beloved child. By the time the novel ends, you cannot help but feel sorry for Jack and even grow to like him and wish he would have another chance to turn his life around.

I guess “Home” is likely to affect the reader deeply in different ways depending on his or her experiences and where s/he is along the continuum of living and dying. That said, there is the unmistakable, underlying thread of communion of being human, finding forgiveness, and learning to be thankful for the little blessings of an imperfect life. Robinson said it well, "There is so much to be grateful for, words are poor things."

[Cathrine ☯️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

After sleeping with the emotional state this book left me in, I have edited my review and changed it to a solid five stars.

"It is a book unsparing in its acknowledgment of sin and unstinting in its belief in the possibility of grace. It is at once hard and forgiving, bitter and joyful, fanatical and serene. “
From "The Return Of The Prodigal Son.” A New York Times book review by A. O. Scott

I just don’t know what I can say or add about this book. Really. It broke my heart and I loved it anyway.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was disappointed with the muted passions of the characters in the novel and their unrealistic dwelling on spiritual and moral issues in isolation from the wellsprings of the usual ongoing connections and concerns in life. The prose has the same elegant and spare virtues as Robinson’s previous books, “Housekeeping” and “Gilead”, but the narrative often dragged to me due to excessive length relative to few substantive events and choices in action taken by the characters.

In the late 50’s, a dutiful middle-aged daughter, Glory, leaves her teaching job to returns to rural Gilead, Iowa, to take care of her frail elderly father, a saint-like pillar of the community he served as a Presbytarian minister. They are joined by an extended visit of the prodigal oldest son, Jack, who was a troublemaker in his youth and has been a source of worry while out of touch for nearly two decades. Outwardly, Christian kindness, forgiveness, and hope for redemption abounds in all their interactions, yet each of the three struggle with their largely hidden senses of guilt over past failures and inadequacies in their current roles in life.

As the characters move toward a better understanding of each other, the reader is faced with a claustrophobia inducing sense of isolation. Aside from regular interactions of daily home life, there is little impingement of the outside world for most of the novel. When Jack and Glory refer to their past lives, no names or places are revealed. A TV is acquired, providing and small window of discussion about the ongoing conflicts of the Civil Rights movement. A rhythm of home life is marked by Jack regularly working on an old car and he and Glory tending daily to the garden. No one fights or displays strong emotions when they are together. No serious medical illnesses of the father calls for dramatic efforts in his care.

There is beauty in this innovative model for exploring the meaning of “home” and exploration of whether adults can truly return to it. But the story almost leans toward the absurdist minimalism of “Waiting for Godot” or to the philosophical setting of Plato’s Cave. But for me I need more realism or more content in the story to reap full pleasures of the resonance between the universal and particulars of life.

[J.C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've just re-read “Home” after having been given Marilynne Robinson's latest book, "Jack", which is concerned with the years before Jack, the beloved prodigal son, returns home. "Home" is the second book in the Gilead set. He’s not the only one to have returned; his sister, Glory, has come back to look after their father, a Presbyterian minister who is now old and frail. She has her own troubled past, which she has kept hidden. Much of the book is a slow, intimate, building of the relationship between Jack and the sister who was a young teenager when he left home, but who helped deal with a tragedy he left behind. There’s no swift unburdening of souls; the intensity of emotion and the attempts at becoming reconciled to one’s past are drawn from the details of life in the old house, the sense of being enchanted, or trapped, by the expectations of the past, the life one has lived, and the gentle, insistent voice of faith in the old minister and in his friend, John Ames, the Congregationalist minister whom we met in “Gilead”. No easy solutions are presented by this offered faith, and the deepest questions remain unanswered in any rational sense, but grace is always present. It pervades anything that this author creates. I loved “Gilead”, but every book I have read by this author seems to take strides further into these people she has created, and “Home” has lead me straight on to re-read the next in the series, “Lila”, which I’ll review in a few days (if I haven’t already done so!). But as I read each of them they seem more powerful than the last!
When I finished re-reading “Home” my first impulse was whether or not to proceed with an idea I had had, to give a copy of “Gilead” to a friend of mine who is deeply religious and who belongs to a strict church. “Gilead” is the most straightforward of the books and the central character is John Ames, a minister. I should have pointed out in my really brief review of “Gilead” that there is a fantastic figure in “Gilead” of John Ames’ grandfather, also a minister, but one who took up arms in the Civil War). I feel sure my friend would appreciate this first book in the set; but I had the strange notion that if she went on to read the other books I didn’t want Jack judged by the standards of religion as it is often observed in our society. In that way I am of course imposing my own judgement. Jack, alcoholic, thief, and ‘bum’, is a precious soul, a refinement of suffering and integrity far from the sensibilities that most of us can attain as we go about our daily lives.
“Home” is so very sad, and so sensitively written – Marilynne Robinson has a wonderful gift for tense dialogue, and the minutest interaction between people. She said (in a recent “Start the Week” programme on BBC Radio 4) that religion in America just now does not encourage a positive, hopeful and respectful attitude to others. These books do.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A companion novel to “Gilead” told in the third person and telling the story of Jack Broughton, his father Rev Broughton and particularly his youngest sister – Glory, living back at home after her fiancée of many years finally stopped his deceit of her (admitting he was married). Many of the scenes directly overlap with “Home” but are viewed by other observers – particularly the interactions between Jack and Ames (mainly recounted by Jack to Glory).

As brilliantly written as “Gilead” although with a very different note – this is a portrayal of disappointment, of hope prolonged and ultimately disappointed, of the difficult of forgiveness and of being forgiven and of forgiving oneself, of the difficult of being a non-repentant but regretful prodigal, of grace and its limitations at least in human form, of both disappointed and unformed faith, of loneliness and isolation especially in a crowd and a family, of ageing (both old age and lapsing into a middle age that didn’t match ones dreams or hopes), of redemption and pre-destination

Ultimately a hugely moving and deeply sad novel.

[Come Musica · Rating 5 out of 5]

È di una delicatezza estrema.
Tutti sognano di avere un posto, dove poter tornare e chiamare casa.
Eppure ci sono case che sembrano un esilio.
La storia di due fratelli, due punti neri che si distinguono in una famiglia che è un foglio bianco immacolato.
Un legame forte che va oltre le colpe personali di ciascuno, per abbracciarsi nell'amore che non giudica e che sa andare oltre.
Quell'amore capace del perdono che solo Glory sa concedere a Jack.
Né il padre, né il reverendo Ames, né altri.
Solo Glory, ma non è abbastanza per Jack.
Bellissimo.

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marilynne Robinson's mournful new novel, Home, is not a sequel or a prequel to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead (2004) but rather a companion. And companionship, it turns out, is what all the lonely people in this book are seeking. Set in the same Iowa town, just a short distance from Rev. John Ames, the dying narrator of Gilead, the events in Home take place concurrently with those of that other novel. This time, however, we're in the house of Rev. Robert Boughton, Ames's longtime friend, who's equally close to putting on "imperishability."

The publisher claims these two novels can be read separately, but that's not fair to the profound relationship between them nor, I think, to the way Home depends on its predecessor for detail and resonance. Indeed, as meditative and spare as Gilead is, it now seems downright hyperactive next to this ruminative new volume. Rev. Ames, you will recall, spiced his reflections on life and God with wild tales of his one-eyed grandfather, who rode with the abolition terrorist John Brown. There are deadly adventures in Home, too, but they take place offstage, and they're never mentioned, only outlined by the pained silence of those who cannot forget.

Almost all the physical movement of this story is exhausted in its opening pages with the return of Glory, the youngest of Boughton's eight children. Robinson writes in the third person, but we see the events that unfold over the following months in 1950 from Glory's point of view. Her father is overjoyed to see her, and neither of them mentions the collapsed engagement and abandoned career that have brought her back to live in her childhood house at the age of 38. "Nothing about that house ever did change," she thinks, "except to fade or scar or wear." Now, forced to abandon dreams of a husband and a child of her own, she's haunted by the question, "What does it mean to come home?" With so much nursing and housekeeping to be done, both of them can pretend that Glory has returned entirely for her father's sake. "She did not permit herself to brood, strong as the urge was sometimes," Robinson writes. "She could decide nothing about her life. She did not want to think about her life."

Their quiet routine is soon interrupted by the return of another wayward Boughton child. The black sheep in this otherwise happy family, Jack was a petty thief and a brooding drunk who skipped town 20 years before, leaving behind his teenage girlfriend, a baby and a cloud of shame. During the intervening years, Jack continued to torture his parents by spurning every offer of assistance no matter how desperate his circumstances. When he finally returns -- thin, pale, unkempt -- Glory barely recognizes him. Though she once idolized him, now he seems to her "the weight on the family's heart, the unnamed absence, like the hero in a melancholy tale." But their father -- a man of "tireless tenderness" -- is giddy, thrilled by the possibility that his boundless love may finally open the heart of his wary, rueful child.

This is a version of the Prodigal Son that picks up where the Gospel parable stops, after the extravagant feast, when the excitement of reunion fades in the awkwardness of the next day, and then the next. Robinson has constructed a plot so still that it seems at times more a series of tableaux than a novel. The tension in Home is palpable but invisible. Rev. Boughton, Glory and Jack move through domestic chores and hesitant conversations, fraught with the danger of confession or rapprochement or affection. Glory and her father are determined to make their love known to Jack, but the possibility of his bolting again renders them all timid and formal. "They had always been so careful of him," Robinson writes, "almost afraid to touch him. There was an aloofness about him more thoroughgoing than modesty or reticence. It was feral, and fragile."

Jack is a man in the throes of a spiritual crisis, which Robinson captures with the most exquisite precision. An alcoholic clutching at the edges of sobriety, he's tempted to think he can clean himself up, but he's desperately afraid of failing, knowing that one more slip could kill both him and his long suffering father. With a mixture of affection, embarrassment and annoyance, he realizes that his father is "afraid to die because of me. To leave me behind, still unregenerate."

Writing one novel about a minister's family is asking for trouble; writing a second seems downright unrepentant, the kind of misjudgment that could land a reputable literary author in a Christian bookstore or with a cozy series on the BBC. But Robinson, who teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, is unlikely to suffer either fate; her books are toxic to sentimentality. Even more than their stylistic beauty, what's miraculous about Gilead and Home is their explicit focus on spiritual affliction, discussed in the hard terms of Protestant theology. Robinson uses the words "grace," "salvation" and "prayer" frequently and without embarrassment and without drifting into the gassy lingo of ecumenical spirituality. Her characters cower in the shadow of perdition.

Though as a teenager Jack seemed to have paid no attention to his father's sermons, now, amid the ruins of his adult life, he's hypnotized by a sense of his worthlessness even as he feels "a certain spiritual hunger." Why, he wonders, could he never be a part of this wonderful family? What has drawn him again and again to hurt them and himself? "I don't really know what to do with myself," he tells Glory. "I'm a scoundrel."

As a disquisition on the agonies of family love and serial disappointment, Home is sometimes too illuminating to bear. During a long, candid conversation that serves as the crisis of the novel, Jack's father confesses, "So many times, over the years, I've tried not to love you so much. I never got anywhere with it, but I tried." And then he manages to ask, without rancor of any kind, "What I'd like to know, is why you didn't love us. That is what has always mystified me."

Although there's much sadness here, it's always cradled in Robinson's voice. "This life on earth is a strange business," she writes, but somehow that business sounds like a more familiar home in these discerning pages.

Originally published in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...

[Justin Pickett · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The sins of the sons are visited on the fathers.” (p. 225)

Old Reverend Robert Boughton is nearing death, but struggles with the idea of leaving this world while his troubled son, Jack, remains unregenerate. Jack is an alcoholic who has stayed away from home for 20 years, even skipping his mother’s funeral; he considers himself a scoundrel. At the start of the novel, Jack returns home and begins helping his younger sister, Glory, care for their dying father.

“I believe that boy was born to break his father’s heart.” (p. 56)

Neither Jack nor Glory is happy. Both have secrets to hide. They know little about each other, having not talked in decades, and having left off on regrettable terms. The story follows the siblings as they wrestle with their pasts and demons, as they reveal more about themselves to each other, as their relationship strengthens, and as they approach the end of their father’s life. Through gardening, games of checkers, bouts of piano playing, and conversations over late-night pancakes, we come to see the beauty and power of family, especially as a beacon of light for those who drowning in waves of misery.

“This house has a soul that loves us all, no matter what.” (p. 252)

The novel is set in Gilead, Iowa. It follows characters who were also in Marilynne Robinson’s earlier novel, Gilead. Reverend Boughton is John Ames close friend. (The latter was the narrator in Gilead.) A few of the scenes in this novel were in the earlier novel, but occur now from a different point of view. I loved that. I also loved being able to spend more time with the characters from Gilead and being able to learn more about Reverend Boughton and his family. I am looking forward to reading the other novels in this series. As with the earlier novel, this one is filled with wonderful writing and memorable quotes.

“More beds of marigolds, another flapping clothesline, another roof pitched under heaven to shelter human hope and frailty.” (p. 13)

“You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forgive, you defend yourself against the possibility of understanding.” (p. 45)

[Sandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since joining GoodReads, my reading has become much more prolific and eclectic. Thanks to the reviews of the members here, I have been much more successful at finding books that appeal to me and are worth my time. One of the books that I read this year as a result of GoodReads reviews was “Gilead” by Marilynne Robinson. “Gilead” was one of the most profoundly moving books I have ever read. It touched my heart in a way that few books ever do. It spoke of faith and forgiveness in such a reverent manner. I may have to review my top-10 list and find a way to make room for “Gilead” on it.

The thing about “Gilead” is that it was a stand-alone novel. It had an ending that was natural and made sense. It left no room for a sequel. Robinson’s latest novel set in the Iowa town of Gilead, “Home”, is not a sequel. Instead, it is a parallel novel. It takes place in the same time period as “Gilead”, but is told from the point of view of the youngest Boughton child, Glory. Glory is a 38-year-old spinster who comes home to take care of her aging father. Some time after she arrives, her wayward brother, Jack, comes home after a twenty-year absence. “Home” examines the relationship that develops between Jack and Glory as they get to know each other and take care of their now-fragile father. Through Glory’s loving and accepting eyes, we get to see a side of Jack that is quite different from the person John Ames sees in “Gilead”.

I had a few problems with “Home”. Most importantly, Robinson chose to use an third person narrator for this story instead of letting Glory tell it in first person as John Ames did in “Gilead”. While the point of view is mostly Glory’s, Robinson lets herself comment on other character’s thoughts and feelings. It seems sloppy, especially when it happens mid-paragraph. It was also strange reading about Jack when I already knew a lot of his story from “Gilead”. I knew who Della was and why he hadn’t brought her with him. Knowing what I knew, it made his reactions to certain news stories make sense. However, he never once comes out and tells Glory the information he told John Ames in “Gilead” about Della. Glory doesn’t find out until the very end though a very implausible circumstance. It was very, very odd already knowing the story of Jack as “Home” is unfolding. That said, I really don’t think “Home” stands on its own the way “Gilead” did. I think if the reader hasn’t read the first novel, there is no way he or she is going to understand what is going on in this one. On the other hand, “Gilead” totally spoils “Home”. The whole thing is given away before the reader even picks it up. I also felt that I wanted to know more about Glory and the period between childhood and her return home. We get a bit of her story, but I would have liked it to have been more substantial.

I am giving “Home” three stars because it is beautifully written. The imagery is subtle but amazingly well done. I could see the Boughton house, garden and barn so clearly in my mind. The setting really came to life and almost became a character of its own. I liked that we got to see a bit of Lila Ames as a real person instead of an idealized wife and mother.

I’m going to end this review with a question that kept coming to my mind. Why did the Boughtons choose Glory as the name for their youngest daughter? The other girls were named Faith, Hope and Grace. In my mind, I kept thinking that the fourth girl should be named Charity, not Glory. I thought Glory was an unusual choice.

[mai ahmd · Rating 5 out of 5]

كان من الرائع حقا أن أخرج من صخب رواية بيت الأرواح لأدخل بهذا الهدوء إلى بيت مارلين روبنسون ، مارلين جعلت من البيت مكانا حقيقيا بكل إعتياديته وروتينه البطىء .. إن رواية روبنسون ليست رواية ذات أحداث إن كنت تنتظر ذلك كما بل هي رواية مشاعر إنسانية تتدفق ببطىء شديد تلك المشاعر التي يعجز التعبير عنها لحواجز عدة يشوبها الخوف من أن تنزلق إلى اللامكان . ..
هكذا كانت العلاقة بين غلوري وشقيقها جاك الذي عاد بعد غياب أكثر من عشرون عاماعاد لبيت والده القس ليبحث عن خلاصه الروحي
جاك الشخصية الأكثر إضطرابا في العائلة غريب الأطوار متناقض لا مبالي وفاتن إلى حد ما يظهر فجأة ليقلب موازين الحياة الرتيبة في البيت بشكل ما بشكل هادىء في الظاهر وبضجيج غير معلن
أمام هذا الحدث الجلل كيف ممكن أن تكون العلاقة بين أفراد تجمعهم صلة الدم وكان قد جمعهم مكان واحد وطفولة واحدة وبيت واحد
لا شك أن الحذر والإرتياب والشك والخوف هو ما سوف يسير هذه العلاقات الجديدة إن روعة ما قدمته مارلين هو إعادة بناء علاقة جديدة بين أخ وأخته وكأنهما يولدان من جديد ويعرفان بعضهما لأول مرة مسترجعين ذكريات بيتهم القديم يجمعهما جبل من الأحباط والخيبة تراكم على مرور السنين
هذه رواية قد تحبها جدا قد تشعر بقرب وحميمية وتلك الألفة الإنسانية مع شخصياتها قد تغرم بعزف جاك على البيانو وبالمقاطع التي كان يقتبسها من الكتاب المقدس إن أراد أن يسخر أو يعلق وتخونه الكلمات قد تغرم بشخصية جاك وهو يضع يديه على وجهه استحياءا وهو يكرر أسفه مرارا وتكرارا
وهناك خيارا آخر قد تصيبك بالملل إن لم يكن يعنيك الموضوع


شخصيا هذه الرواية مسّت قلبي بقوة