The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Gilead" pens a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations.
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The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Gilead" pens a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations.
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Marilynne Robinson's "Home" (2008) is an closely textured novel that explores individuality, family, community, and the world of everyday life interweaved with religious faith. The novel is set in the small fictitious town of Gilead, Iowa, in 1956. It is the second in a series of Robinson's four "Gilead" novels the first of which "Gilead" received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. I had read the earlier novel many years ago and wanted to revisit Gilead with Robinson at last. The characters are largely the same. The two books have aptly been described as companion novels, and it unnecessary to have read "Gilead" before reading "Home".
The midwest small town of Gilead is home in this book, but more specifically home is large, old, Victorian and poorly maintained family home of the Reverend Robert Boughton, the aged, retired minister of the town's Presbyterian church. The home has been in the Boughton family for generations. Boughton and his wife, deceased when the story begins have raised eight children in the home, four boys and four girls. Of the eight children, six have moved away to pursue their own lives and return to their Gilead home for visits. The two youngest children, for differing reasons, have returned home to live. The youngest child, Glory, 38, is unmarried and before returning home had taught in high school for many years. The next child, Jack, 43, has had a tumultuous childhood and adulthood. He returns to the family home bedraggled and hung over after an absence from home of twenty years.
Among other Biblical allusions, the novel draws heavily on the parable of the Prodigal Son in telling the story of the Bouton family. The novel, begins with the relationship between Gloria and Jack. Gloria is already at the Gilead home, and she has difficulty even recognizing the adult Jack and in remembering their childhood of years earlier. Gloria and Jack are cautious of one another and reluctant to share details of their past lives which have been in many respects troubled and sad. Gradually the two siblings open up to a degree to each other. With the Reverend Boughton, Glory and Jack likewise have their secrets. Jack had always been the minister's most beloved child, perhaps because of his wild, rebellious nature, and has caused him and the family no end of difficulty. Jack has not remained within the faith, but that is the least of it. In addition to the Boughton family relationships, the Reverend John Ames, Boughton's best friend and the narrator of the novel "Gilead" is an important character in this book in his relationship to Jack and to other members of the family.
Jack feels a great deal of remorse for his life and for the difficulty he has caused his family. He has a longstanding relationship with a woman, Della, to whom he writes daily but who does not respond. Glory has had a longstanding relationship with a man who has deceived her before she returns to Gilead. The aged Reverend Boughton is ill and failing fast as he seeks a reconciliation with his son.
The novel interweaves the quotidian, apparently mundane details of everyday life with spiritual themes. The story of the Boughtons is intertwined with changes in the town and changes in America. The family, town life, and American life are portrayed without the sharp, judgmental character that has become all-too-common as Americans look at themselves. American Protestantism receives a sympathetic portrayal. but the spiritual tone of the book is broader.
The overarching theme of the book is forgiveness, of oneself and others, and a recognition of human fallibility. The ultimate home of this book is God. In theological terms, the novel explores the nature of grace. Individuals are sinful but, in terms of the book's Protestantism, God offers forgiveness and hope, without judgment, even when it may be unearned. In my view, the book offers a great deal of wisdom. It recognizes human finitude and need for change while offering an antidote to the social criticism and anger that have become too commonplace in American culture.
Although the book is sad, it offers an ultimately hopeful, spiritual vision of American culture and American life. that I find important and valuable.
