United States
![Toni Morrison - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B000APT7NQ.jpg)
Home (Vintage International)
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A New York Times Notable Book • From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner: an emotional powerhouse of a novel about a modern Odysseus returning to a 1950s America mined with lethal pitfalls for an unwary Black man
When Frank Money joined the army to escape his too-small world, he left behind his cherished and fragile little sister, Cee. After the war, he journeys to his native Georgia with a renewed sense of purpose in search of his sister, but it becomes clear that their troubles began well before their wartime separation. Together, they return to their rural hometown of Lotus, where buried secrets are unearthed and where Frank learns at last what it means to be a man, what it takes to heal, and-above all-what it means to come home.
When Frank Money joined the army to escape his too-small world, he left behind his cherished and fragile little sister, Cee. After the war, he journeys to his native Georgia with a renewed sense of purpose in search of his sister, but it becomes clear that their troubles began well before their wartime separation. Together, they return to their rural hometown of Lotus, where buried secrets are unearthed and where Frank learns at last what it means to be a man, what it takes to heal, and-above all-what it means to come home.
Editorial Reviews
A Washington Post Notable Work of Fiction
A Best Book of the Year: NPR, AV Club, St. Louis Dispatch
"Haunting . . . [Morrison] maps the day-to-day lives of her characters with lyrical precision. . . . Home encapsulates all the themes that have fueled her fiction, from the early novels Sula and The Bluest Eye, through her dazzling masterwork, Beloved." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"Gorgeous and intense, brutal yet heartwarming. . . . Accessible, tightly composed and visceral as anything Morrison has yet written. . . . [A] devastating, deeply humane--and ever-relevant--book." -Heller McAlpin, NPR
"Luminescent. . . . There is no novelist alive who has captured the beauty and democracy of the American vernacular so well." -The Boston Globe
"Powerful. . . . Jaw-dropping in its beauty and audacity. . . . Brims with affection and optimism." -San Francisco Chronicle
"This scarily quiet tale packs all the thundering themes Morrison has explored before. She's never been more concise, though, and that restraint demonstrates the full range of her power. . . . A daringly hopeful story about the possibility of healing - or at least surviving in a shadow of peace." -Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"A fertile narrative imbued with and embellished by Morrison's visionary scope and poetic majesty." -Elle
"A bona fide literary event . . . an emotional powerhouse. . . . Told in the stark, economical tone of a short story, with all the philosophical heft of a novel." -Entertainment Weekly
"A short, swift, and luminescent book. . . . A remarkable thing: proof that Toni Morrison is at once America's most deliberate and flexible writer. She has almost entirely retooled her style to tell a story that demands speed, brevity, the treat of a looming curtain call. . . . There is no novelist alive who has captured the beauty and democracy of the American vernacular so well." -The Boston Globe
"Profound . . . Morrison's portrayal of Frank is vivid and intimate, her portraits of the women in his life equally masterful. Its brevity, stark prose, and small cast of characters notwithstanding, this story of a man struggling to reclaim his roots and his manhood is enormously powerful." -O, The Oprah Magazine
"Perhaps Morrison's most lyrical performance to date. . . . Home has a sparer, faster pace than earlier Morrison novels like Beloved or Jazz, as though a drumbeat is steadily intensifying in the background and the storyteller has to keep up." -The New York Review of Books
"In a mere 145 pages, Morrison has created a richly textured, deeply felt novel. "Home" has a sense of the ...
A Best Book of the Year: NPR, AV Club, St. Louis Dispatch
"Haunting . . . [Morrison] maps the day-to-day lives of her characters with lyrical precision. . . . Home encapsulates all the themes that have fueled her fiction, from the early novels Sula and The Bluest Eye, through her dazzling masterwork, Beloved." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"Gorgeous and intense, brutal yet heartwarming. . . . Accessible, tightly composed and visceral as anything Morrison has yet written. . . . [A] devastating, deeply humane--and ever-relevant--book." -Heller McAlpin, NPR
"Luminescent. . . . There is no novelist alive who has captured the beauty and democracy of the American vernacular so well." -The Boston Globe
"Powerful. . . . Jaw-dropping in its beauty and audacity. . . . Brims with affection and optimism." -San Francisco Chronicle
"This scarily quiet tale packs all the thundering themes Morrison has explored before. She's never been more concise, though, and that restraint demonstrates the full range of her power. . . . A daringly hopeful story about the possibility of healing - or at least surviving in a shadow of peace." -Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"A fertile narrative imbued with and embellished by Morrison's visionary scope and poetic majesty." -Elle
"A bona fide literary event . . . an emotional powerhouse. . . . Told in the stark, economical tone of a short story, with all the philosophical heft of a novel." -Entertainment Weekly
"A short, swift, and luminescent book. . . . A remarkable thing: proof that Toni Morrison is at once America's most deliberate and flexible writer. She has almost entirely retooled her style to tell a story that demands speed, brevity, the treat of a looming curtain call. . . . There is no novelist alive who has captured the beauty and democracy of the American vernacular so well." -The Boston Globe
"Profound . . . Morrison's portrayal of Frank is vivid and intimate, her portraits of the women in his life equally masterful. Its brevity, stark prose, and small cast of characters notwithstanding, this story of a man struggling to reclaim his roots and his manhood is enormously powerful." -O, The Oprah Magazine
"Perhaps Morrison's most lyrical performance to date. . . . Home has a sparer, faster pace than earlier Morrison novels like Beloved or Jazz, as though a drumbeat is steadily intensifying in the background and the storyteller has to keep up." -The New York Review of Books
"In a mere 145 pages, Morrison has created a richly textured, deeply felt novel. "Home" has a sense of the ...
Readers Top Reviews
Sen_sunflowerJanie U
I love to get comfortable and dig into any of the richly crafted works of Toni Morrison. I had not read about this title before 'Home'. It was a thin book of about 140 pages and I finished it over a couple of days. Home is about a young black man, returning to his roots following the Korean War, after enduring various forms of loss and trauma that scar him deeply. The story also incorporates his sister's equally traumatising story, although not told directly from her point of view, for the most part. This is where the brevity of the book let it down, in my opinion. I didn't get a feel for the sister and I just about got acquainted with her brother, the main protagonist. Towards the end of the book, I felt too many things were getting tied up too quickly, out of keeping with the initial pace of the storytelling. Those were my only quibbles. Besides that, it was well-written. Although I didn't admire it as thoroughly as her other works (e.g. The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Sula, to name a few) Morrison is gifted with an uncanny ability to conjure up, using words alone, a rock-solid picture of a bygone era.
Brian HawkinsonG
I really look forward to all of Morrison's new releases. I am an avid fan and she is one of my favorite authors ever, with Paradise being one of my top three books of all time. That being said I don't understand the hype behind Home and why so many glowing reviews. Home is well written, which I would have guessed without even reading it knowing Morrison. My problem is that the story didn't seem to go anywhere or do anything. I understand that it is a story of hope and survival, but the short handed way Morrison handled it was more like she was outlining a book to her publisher than an actual book. We see Frank travelling with a short background/history of him. We see Ycidra as she grows up and moves to Atlanta. That's pretty much it. Two loosely connected stories brought together in the end, with Morrison trying to shock the reader into a jaw dropping moment. A huge fan of Morrison, not a fan of Home at all. Well written, but the story is more of an idea of story rather than the fully fleshed out books and characters she has written in the past. Home is still arguably better than a lot of other stuff out there, but compared to her own written work this one pales in comparison. 2 stars.
Angela Frazier
Brilliant. Hauntingly ties the past and present (less, we forget). The fragility of the human mind and the ghosts of the things we see tend to haunt us a lifetime. But love and the human condition by which our bonds are forged...that is the most powerful source of any healing. In this story, you see that come full circle as Frank does just that for himself and his sister Cee.
Henry's Mom
This slim volume probably doesn’t rank at the top of Morrison’s amazing novels but I read it twice and the second read was quite powerful for me. Racism is addressed in a variety of ways and there’s a good story line. It’s clear that Frank Money’s experience in Korea has been traumatic and that the military was not helpful when he came back to the states. I don’t understand the local women’s strange healing of Frank’s sister, but I could accept it. Morrison provides some closure for Frank’s and his sister’s earlier trauma as children which then clarifies the event that opens the story.
Bob
I selected this book with news that Toni Morrison, the author, had passed away. And I saw on the West Point Facebook site a photo of her surrounded by cadets being honored for her literary achievements and this book in particular. In this age it is an important reminder that racism still exists and that it diminishes us us as a Nation in all its forms. It is a reminder that we inhabit this planet together, we are all brothers and sisters, and as a Nation we must do better. Nothing short of moving.
Short Excerpt Teaser
ONE
They rose up like men. We saw them. Like men they stood.
We shouldn't have been anywhere near that place. Like most farmland outside Lotus, Georgia, this here one had plenty scary warning signs. The threats hung from wire mesh fences with wooden stakes every fifty or so feet. But when we saw a crawl space that some animal had dug-a coyote maybe, or a coon dog-we couldn't resist. Just kids we were. The grass was shoulder high for her and waist high for me so, looking out for snakes, we crawled through it on our bellies. The reward was worth the harm grass juice and clouds of gnats did to our eyes, because there right in front of us, about fifty yards off, they stood like men. Their raised hooves crashing and striking, their manes tossing back from wild white eyes. They bit each other like dogs but when they stood, reared up on their hind legs, their forelegs around the withers of the other, we held our breath in wonder. One was rust-colored, the other deep black, both sunny with sweat. The neighs were not as frightening as the silence following a kick of hind legs into the lifted lips of the opponent. Nearby, colts and mares, indifferent, nibbled grass or looked away. Then it stopped. The rust-colored one dropped his head and pawed the ground while the winner loped off in an arc, nudging the mares before him.
As we elbowed back through the grass looking for the dug-out place, avoiding the line of parked trucks beyond, we lost our way. Although it took forever to re-sight the fence, neither of us panicked until we heard voices, urgent but low. I grabbed her arm and put a finger to my lips. Never lifting our heads, just peeping through the grass, we saw them pull a body from a wheelbarrow and throw it into a hole already waiting. One foot stuck up over the edge and quivered, as though it could get out, as though with a little effort it could break through the dirt being shoveled in. We could not see the faces of the men doing the burying, only their trousers; but we saw the edge of a spade drive the jerking foot down to join the rest of itself. When she saw that black foot with its creamy pink and mud-streaked sole being whacked into the grave, her whole body began to shake. I hugged her shoulders tight and tried to pull her trembling into my own bones because, as a brother four years older, I thought I could handle it. The men were long gone and the moon was a cantaloupe by the time we felt safe enough to disturb even one blade of grass and move on our stomachs, searching for the scooped-out part under the fence. When we got home we expected to be whipped or at least scolded for staying out so late, but the grown-ups did not notice us. Some disturbance had their attention.
Since you're set on telling my story, whatever you think and whatever you write down, know this: I really forgot about the burial. I only remembered the horses. They were so beautiful. So brutal. And they stood like men.
They rose up like men. We saw them. Like men they stood.
We shouldn't have been anywhere near that place. Like most farmland outside Lotus, Georgia, this here one had plenty scary warning signs. The threats hung from wire mesh fences with wooden stakes every fifty or so feet. But when we saw a crawl space that some animal had dug-a coyote maybe, or a coon dog-we couldn't resist. Just kids we were. The grass was shoulder high for her and waist high for me so, looking out for snakes, we crawled through it on our bellies. The reward was worth the harm grass juice and clouds of gnats did to our eyes, because there right in front of us, about fifty yards off, they stood like men. Their raised hooves crashing and striking, their manes tossing back from wild white eyes. They bit each other like dogs but when they stood, reared up on their hind legs, their forelegs around the withers of the other, we held our breath in wonder. One was rust-colored, the other deep black, both sunny with sweat. The neighs were not as frightening as the silence following a kick of hind legs into the lifted lips of the opponent. Nearby, colts and mares, indifferent, nibbled grass or looked away. Then it stopped. The rust-colored one dropped his head and pawed the ground while the winner loped off in an arc, nudging the mares before him.
As we elbowed back through the grass looking for the dug-out place, avoiding the line of parked trucks beyond, we lost our way. Although it took forever to re-sight the fence, neither of us panicked until we heard voices, urgent but low. I grabbed her arm and put a finger to my lips. Never lifting our heads, just peeping through the grass, we saw them pull a body from a wheelbarrow and throw it into a hole already waiting. One foot stuck up over the edge and quivered, as though it could get out, as though with a little effort it could break through the dirt being shoveled in. We could not see the faces of the men doing the burying, only their trousers; but we saw the edge of a spade drive the jerking foot down to join the rest of itself. When she saw that black foot with its creamy pink and mud-streaked sole being whacked into the grave, her whole body began to shake. I hugged her shoulders tight and tried to pull her trembling into my own bones because, as a brother four years older, I thought I could handle it. The men were long gone and the moon was a cantaloupe by the time we felt safe enough to disturb even one blade of grass and move on our stomachs, searching for the scooped-out part under the fence. When we got home we expected to be whipped or at least scolded for staying out so late, but the grown-ups did not notice us. Some disturbance had their attention.
Since you're set on telling my story, whatever you think and whatever you write down, know this: I really forgot about the burial. I only remembered the horses. They were so beautiful. So brutal. And they stood like men.
