Home (Oprah's Book Club)
A Novel
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4.2 • 157 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMESE NOTABLE BOOK • WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE
A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A LOS ANGELES TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
“[Robinson's] prose is our flight out, a keen instrument of vision and transcendence.” —O, the Oprah Magazine
Hailed as "incandescent," "magnificent," and "a literary miracle" (Entertainment Weekly), hundreds of thousands of readers were enthralled by Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. Now Robinson returns with a brilliantly imagined retelling of the prodigal son parable, set at the same moment and in the same Iowa town as Gilead.
A luminous and healing book about families, family secrets, and faith from one of America's most beloved and acclaimed authors.
The Reverend Boughton's hell-raising son, Jack, has come home after twenty years away. Artful and devious in his youth, now an alcoholic carrying two decades worth of secrets, he is perpetually at odds with his traditionalist father, though he remains his most beloved child. As Jack tries to make peace with his father, he begins to forge an intense bond with his sister Glory, herself returning home with a broken heart and turbulent past.
Home is a luminous and healing book about families, family secrets, and faith from one of America's most beloved and acclaimed authors.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This bittersweet novel about the complexities of family is best read with a box of tissues nearby. A sequel of sorts to Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer-winning Gilead, Home takes place in the same small Iowa town during the same 1950s time frame, but it’s a standalone story. When ailing minister Robert Boughton gets a visit from two of his eight children, Glory and Jack, the family’s emotional turmoil bubbles to the surface. Jack’s a lifelong ne’er-do-well who fled town 20 years ago, while a broken engagement has left Glory emotionally shattered. The three family members awkwardly dance around their problems in a way that’s both relatable and heartbreaking, struggling to love each other despite their profound feelings of anger, envy, and disappointment. The Boughtons are far from perfect, but their flaws reveal many emotional truths about families and the human condition. Robinson nails the push and pull of family dynamics.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Robinson's beautiful new novel, a companion piece to her Pulitzer Prize winning Gilead, is an elegant variation on the parable of the prodigal son's return. The son is Jack Boughton, one of the eight children of Robert Boughton, the former Gilead, Iowa, pastor, who now, in 1957, is a widowed and dying man. Jack returns home shortly after his sister, 38-year-old Glory, moves in to nurse their father, and it is through Glory's eyes that we see Jack's drama unfold. When Glory last laid eyes on Jack, she was 16, and he was leaving Gilead with a reputation as a thief and a scoundrel, having just gotten an underage girl pregnant. By his account, he'd since lived as a vagrant, drunk and jailbird until he fell in with a woman named Della in St. Louis. By degrees, Jack and Glory bond while taking care of their father, but when Jack's letters to Della are returned unopened, Glory has to deal with Jack's relapse into bad habits and the effect it has on their father. In giving an ancient drama of grace and perdition such a strong domestic setup, Robinson stakes a fierce claim to a divine recognition behind the rituals of home.
