Home (2009)
Who wrote it?
Marilynne Summers Robinson (1943- ; active 1980 - ) born Sandpoint, Idaho, US. She was raised a Presbyterian and later became a Congregationalist, worshipping and sometimes preaching in Iowa City, where she still lives. Her religion has informed much of her work, and she is a passionate advocate of her faith, regularly making the case for a reassessment of Calvinism and Puritanism.
She married Fred Miller Robinson in 1967, and they had two sons together. She wrote her debut novel Housekeeping (1980) in the evenings while they slept. That novel was nominated for the 1982 Pulitzer Prize, but not followed up for more than two decades. She was far from inactive in the interim period, though, teaching and writing essays, as well as publishing a 1989 non-fiction book on nuclear pollution.
Her eventual second novel, 2004’s Gilead, set the tone for all of her subsequent work, as well as winning the Pulitzer. In it, she began telling the tales of two religious families in rural Iowa, both led by preachers - Rev. John Ames being the narrator and primary focus of the first novel. She followed it with 2009’s Home, which focuses on Rev. Robert Boughton and his children, 2014’s Booker-longlisted Lila, where John Ames’ wife comes to the fore, and 2020’s Jack, which returns to one of the major characters from Home.
What's it about?
Home is not a straightforward sequel to Robinson’s much-feted Gilead, but more of a companion piece, looking at a similar time period from different perspectives. In it, she shifts the focus to John Ames’ lifelong friend and friendly adversary in religious discussion, the Rev. Robert Boughton. It focuses primarily on three characters: the Rev. Boughton himself, who is aging and sick, and reflecting on his life and that of his family; his daughter Glory (probably the primary focus of this one) who has returned home in her late 30s, ostensibly to help him; and his ‘prodigal son’ Jack who arrives a little way into the novel following an absence of around twenty years.
Not a huge amount happens in the novel in terms of plot - the main ‘movements’ have already been described in the short paragraph above! - but rather we observe their sedate life in its minute detail, and explore their inner lives and conflicts. The latter are explored on multiple levels, both in terms of the conventional dynamics of families and relationships, and through the much more precise lenses of spiritual concerns, notably the conflict between differing interpretations of Protestant Theology.
Through the novel we learn more about its key characters and their relationships both with each other and their erstwhile romantic partners (all of the central protagonists are alone in this sense for the course of the novel). Ames returns more as a foil for the Boughtons to bounce off / against than to demonstrate any further major development in his own right.
What I liked
It just about stood up on Robinson’s own terms as a book that doesn’t absolutely require you to have read its predecessor, and I suspect that the ordering at least of these first two parts in the series could be reasonably interchangeable. More on that later though.
The writing is rather exquisitely precise and well-crafted. If not exactly economical, it’s intensely evocative, managing to wring a huge amount of meaning out of relatively little action.
Particularly (I imagine) for someone like myself who hasn’t read Gilead (there, I’ve said it now!) it does an excellent job of slowly revealing its key plot developments. We learn about both Glory and Jack’s troubled pasts alongside the opposite character, and the way the details subtly unfold (particularly for Jack’s story) is very well-handled.
I kind of liked that I struggled to place the novel in time for around its first half. I think that’s probably a deliberate effort on Robinson’s part - it’s an ideal canvas on which to render timeless debates and also then all the more startling as present-day real-world events begin to intrude and rub up against those age-old beliefs.
What I didn’t like
No fault of the author, but while I thought it generally stood alone, it’s still annoying to read out of sequence and be left speculating as to what I may or may not have gained by reading its predecessor first. Yes, of course I could have checked out Gilead first but I didn’t and now I’m not convinced enough that I absolutely need to go back to it.
Aspects of it slightly bored me, if I’m honest. I’m no great student of theology and while I understand that Robinson’s books have rightly found an audience beyond those who pore over every reference to predestination or the redemption of the soul, it isn’t something that I feel overly moved by. There are of course things to be moved by in here, and things which do present interesting conflicts and contrasts with the devoutly religious way of life, but I sometimes felt that the novel was less concerned with these bigger and more broadly human questions and more with theological nuance that I didn’t particularly care about.
While the writing was broadly impressive, I did also find it occasionally a little tiresome. With so little going on of evident significance, it’s hard for the novel to show rather than tell, so particularly for its first half we find every action of the characters over-explained with reference to how it illuminates aspects of their personality. This tends to leave little room for interpretation, and a sense that a lot of the thinking has been done already and is being presented to you ‘oven-baked’. I find this can reduce scope for empathy with characters, tending them towards being ciphers on which ideas can be projected.
I also think I may just have chosen a bad time of year to read this one - I tackled it in bits, fairly slowly, over the festive period. Two issues with that: it probably deserves to be read as more of a unified whole; and it most certainly isn’t a festive read (especially those of us who associate the festive period more with booze and cakes and frivolity than with theological contemplation).
Food & drink pairings
Hearty stews, usually involving the demise of a local chicken
Abundant apples
Covert booze
Fun facts
Showing how little I know, this appears to be one of the most universally acclaimed winners in the Prize’s history, with lots of reporting of the time highlighting the jury’s unanimous and straightforward decision, describing Robinson as one of ‘our greatest living authors’ and chair Fi Glover describing it as a ‘profound work of art’. So that’s me told!
Honestly struggling with much else on this one that hasn’t already been covered above.
Vanquished Foes
Ellen Feldman (Scottsboro)
Samantha Harvey (The Wilderness)
Samantha Hunt (The Invention of Everything Else)
Deirdre Madden (Molly Fox's Birthday)
Kamila Shamsie (Burnt Shadows)
Another year, another list of books I haven’t read. Many of them sound really interesting though - any tips? Once again, very little evident Booker overlap - though 2009’s Booker winner Wolf Hall would show up on the 2010 list…
Context
In 2009:
Collapse of Icelandic government and banking system in the wake of the ongoing financial crisis
Boko Haram uprising in Nigeria
Treaty of Lisbon comes into force
Hudson River "miracle" as US Airways flights ditches with no casualties
Sri Lankan civil war ends after more than a quarter century of fighting
H1N1 "Swine Flu" influenza pandemic
Greenland gains self rule
Parliamentary Expenses scandal in the UK
Creation of Bitcoin cryptocurrency
Death of Michael Jackson
Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice
Avatar
Up
The Hangover
Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavillion
The xx, xx
Rihanna, Rated R
Life Lessons
Isn’t God brilliant?
I am an absolute philistine, sorry…
Score
7
Part of me is intrigued to find out how much of my relatively tepid appreciation of this novel is based on not having read Gilead, but another part of me just can’t really be bothered. Anyone want to convince me?
I gave 2009 Booker winner Wolf Hall 8/10 which I might be tempted to revise up slightly with the benefit of hindsight…
Ranking to date:
Property (2003) - Valerie Martin - 9.5
The Idea of Perfection (2001) - Kate Grenville - 9
Half of a Yellow Sun (2007) - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - 9
When I Lived in Modern Times (2000) - Linda Grant - 9
Larry’s Party (1998) - Carol Shields - 8.5
Bel Canto (2002) - Ann Patchett - 8.5
Small Island (2004) - Andrea Levy - 8.5
A Crime in the Neighbourhood (1999) - Suzanne Berne - 8.5
On Beauty (2006) - Zadie Smith - 8
A Spell of Winter (1996) - Helen Dunmore - 8
The Road Home (2008) - Rose Tremain - 7.5
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2005) - Lionel Shriver - 7.5
Home (2009) - Marilynne Robinson - 7
Fugitive Pieces (1997) - Anne Michaels - 6.5
Next up
Continuing with the Women’s Prize winners and 2010’s The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver.
