Home

As I pack to fly to Massachusetts for my stepmother's memorial service the thoughts of "home" and what it means to any one of us is pressing heavy on my mind. It's fitting that I've just finished reading Marilynne Robinson's follow up to her Pulitizer Prize winning Gilead. Ms. Robinson's books are unlike anything you'll find on the usual top 10 lists. They are quiet, pensive, cerebral novels with little action but a lot going on. They are exquisite pieces of literature and will tear your heart out.

Gilead and its set-piece, Home, take place in 1950's Iowa, where neighbors are in and out of eachother's lives and homes every day. It is still a time of patriarchal households and in Gilead readers are introduced to the letters of Rev. Ames, an aging preacher who is writing to his very young son of the family's stormy history and the schism between his own father and grandfather over the abolitionist movement. This little gem will become a clue in Home.

Simultaneously, in Home, Rev. Boughton, Ames's dear friend and neighbor, widowed and ill, has to rely on one of his eight children, 38 year old Glory, to leave her teaching career and return home to Gilead to care for him in his final days. Glory is a long-suffering kind of gal and, though she truly loves her father, there is an underlying sense of loss and resentment for her "real" life which is exacerbated when her brother Jack, the archtypal prodigal son, returns to Gilead after a years' long absence.

I've never really "gotten" the parable of the prodigal son. Back when my dad and I still went to church we used to laugh over the complete injustice done to the "good" son who stayed home with his parents and ran the farm while the wastral went out into the world and lived a life of debauchery only to return to the celebratory arms of his family. Don't get me wrong, I know how unhealthy it is for one's heart and soul to hold a grudge and I've never been one to do that but...jeez....fair is fair!

As the story unfolds we discover, and readers who read Gilead first would remember, that Jack's shame was impregnating a young woman in his youth and leaving town to avoid responsibility, causing a rift between the preachers Boughton and Ames. Jack was the golden boy and the favorite of his father. Jack's moral failures, drunkeness and thievery, took the soul out of Boughton and hung over the entire family like a pall. It is painful to watch Jack tip toe around his family, unable to ask for forgiveness or accept that he's worthy of it.
I know, you're thinking, why would anyone want to read this terribly depressing story? I suppose because it makes you think about the big issues in life; forgiveness, responsibility and redemption.

To keep some lightness in my step, I'm listening to some comfort food, Maeve Binchey's Heart and Soul. You can always count on her for improbably happy endings!