"Toni Morrison is the author of ten novels, from The Bluest Eye
(1970) to A Mercy (2008). She has received the National Book
Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 1993 she was
awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She lives in New York.
i>From the Hardcover edition."
"Perhaps Morrison's most lyrical performance so far." --Christopher
Benfey, The New York Review of Books "Morrison writes about
psychological violence with an engineer's precision and a poet's
expansiveness." --Tyrone Beason, The Seattle Times "Morrison packs
a powerful narrative punch. . . . [Her] depiction of the delightful
ways black men engage in verbal banter to exchange personal and
collective memories, and the poignant ways black women stand on
their faith to deploy survival strategies only they could design,
makes this a novel that begs rereading. She movingly describes
people who survive and thrive, even when life deals them painful,
mean blows. . . . [T]he beauty of Morrison's language and her
profound truths about life and living compel one to run the page
and keep reading. This 10th novel shows that the author is still
questioning what we think we know when we think we know someone."
--Marilyn Sanders Mobley, Ms. Magazine "Home showcases a writer at
the height of her powers in evoking a moment and its historical
counter-currents. And it ranks among [Morrison's] most readable
stories. It is also, like so many of her novels, a book certain to
reward rereading: you can go Home again. And you should." --Jim
Cullen, History News Network "Gorgeous and intense, brutal yet
heartwarming . . . like a slingshot that wields the impact of a
missile. . . . Home is as accessible, tightly composed and visceral
as anything Morrison has written. . . . [Her] shorter, more direct
sentences have the capacity to leave a reader awestruck. . . .
Devastating, deeply humane, ever-relevant." --Heller McAlpin, NPR
"The story of the warrior's struggle to return home is classic, but
Nobel laureate Morrison imbues her tale with twists that make the
journey more challenging and Frank Money's success less certain. .
. . As usual, Morrison's writing is both lyrical and earthy and,
although spare, dense with hints and meaning. This is a book that
can be read in one long sitting, and probably will be . . . [A]
satisfying, emotional . . . textured, painful and ultimately
uplifting story." --Anne Neville, Buffalo News "In this slim,
scathing novel, Morrison brings us another quintessentially
American character struggling through another shameful moment in
our nation's history. . . . Home is as much prose poem as long-form
fiction--a triumph for a beloved literary icon who proves that her
talents remain in full flower. Four stars." --Meredith Maran,
People "Beautifully wrought . . . [Home] packs considerable power,
because the Nobel Prize-winning author is still writing
unflinchingly about the most painful human experiences. There's
nothing small about the story she's told with such grace in these
pages." --Steve Yarbrough, The Oregonian "Short, swift, and
luminescent . . . The music of Morrison's language, with its poetic
oral qualities, its ability to be both past and present in one long
line, requires a robust structure, a big space; a small auditorium
simply does not suit it. Home, then, is . . . a remarkable thing:
proof that 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 threat of a looming
curtain call." --John Freeman, The Boston Globe "Part of Morrison's
longstanding greatness resides in her ability to animate specific
stories about the black experience and simultaneously speak to all
experience. It's precisely by committing unreservedly to the first
that she's able to transcend the circumscribed audience it might
imply. This work's accomplishment lies in its considerable capacity
to make us feel that we are each not only resident but co-owner of,
and collectively accountable for, this land we call home." --Leah
Hager Cohen, The New York Times Book Review "Powerful . . . Home,
the latest novel by Toni Morrison, is almost eerie in its
timeliness. Set in the 1950s, it does not evoke the martini and
pinched waist nostalgia of Mad Men. Rather, it calls to mind the
plight of today's veterans returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan
wars. . . . A hallmark of Morrison's magic is the way that her
imagination engages critically with several subjects
simultaneously, but Home is particularly intriguing because it also
seems to be a reflection on the author's previous works. . . . .
The writing reads like a love letter to a generation that took the
English language, lubricated its syntax and bent meanings as the
situation required. . . . The result is not poetry, exactly, yet
the characters communicate in such a way that there are subtle
metaphors in every exchange. The events of this narrative are
striking and arresting in the manner that one expects from
Morrison, the only living American Nobel laureate in literature.
Family secrets are revealed, brutal truths about the history of
race in America are displayed without sentimentality or animus. As
always, Morrison's prose is immaculate, jaw-dropping in its beauty
and audacity. . . . In addition to her reputation for gorgeous
sentences, Morrison is known for a certain brutality in her
plotting, and this wrenching novel is no exception. But Home also
brims with affection and optimism. The gains here are hard won, but
honestly earned, and sweet as love." --Tayari Jones, San Francisco
Chronicle "Morrison writes without airs. In Home, even the most
painful and devastating moments are told head-on, not prettified to
make them more palatable [or] heightened to create a stronger
impression. She builds trust with the reader at every step; the
events may be imagined, but Morrison is speaking her truth, and we
believe her. Here, as in her previous books, Morrison's characters
carry their histories heavy on their backs, a burden that defines
them and influences everything they do today. The past, she says
repeatedly, is always with us. It can't be ignored or shunted aside
because to be truly home in the present, we must confront the
past." --Amy Driscoll, The Miami Herald "[Home] is compact, a
novella really, and filled with Morrison's signature style--clear,
razor-sharp, poetic writing and layered storytelling. . . . This
story isn't about taking responsibility for others. It is a tale
about taking responsibility for yourself. . . . The journey home,
then, is not to a physical place. It is an internal destination
that each of us must find." --Karen M. Thomas, The Dallas Morning
News "If you are familiar with Toni Morrison's work (who isn't?),
you will want to read her new novella, Home, in one sitting. It
will take only two or three hours, and that one sitting will help
you keep in mind the story's beautiful symmetry. Home is a reverse
journey, a return to an earlier place, a going back instead of
forward--at least physically--though it can just as easily be
argued that the protagonist (Frank Money) advances as much as he
retreats. And that metaphor of advancing is especially suitable,
given the fact that Frank has recently returned from the war in
Korea. He's been traumatized by horrific events but is equally
unsettled when he realizes that he's returned to the same racist
country he left before he departed to fight for America. . . .
Above all, Home demonstrates a sense of community, not just within
the physical environment of one's origins but also with the
assistance that total strangers offer Frank Money. The poorest
people in the country extend a hand, share, and rehabilitate others
when necessary. These values are shown to be so redemptive that
they cancel out what many people believe to be natural instincts of
revenge, of payback, of an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth.
. . . Home is an engaging narrative, full of surprises and
profundities." --Charles R. Larson, Counterpunch
"This haunting, slender novel is a kind of tiny Rosetta Stone to
Toni Morrison's entire oeuvre. Home encapsulates all the themes
that have fueled her fiction: . . . the hold that time past exerts
over time present, the hazards of love (and its link to leaving and
loss), the possibility of redemption and transcendence. Once again
we are introduced to characters who must choose between the
suffocating but sustaining ethos of small-town life and the
temptations and pitfalls of the wider world. Once again we are made
to see the costs and consolations of caring too much--for a family
member, a lover or a friend. . . . Whereas Beloved mythologized its
characters' stories, lending their experiences the resonance of a
symphony or an opera, Home is a lower-key chamber piece, pitched
somewhere between straight-up naturalism and the world of fable. In
these pages Morrison eschews the fierce Faulknerian prose and
Garcia Marquez-like flights of surrealism that animated some of her
earlier novels, adopting a new, pared-down style that enables her
to map the day-to-day lives of her characters with lyrical
precision. . . . Morrison has found a new, angular voice and
straight-ahead storytelling style that showcase her knowledge of
her characters, and the ways in which violence and passion and
regret are braided through their lives, the ways in which love and
duty can redeem a blighted past." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York
Times "Another dazzling journey with Toni Morrison as tour guide
into America's slippery psychological, cultural and political
terrain. In Home, Morrison has given us another triumph of beauty
and brutality both in tone, language, and characters. Like her slim
volumes The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Jazz, the Nobel Laureate's tenth
offering reminds you of riveting tales told by a wise stranger--not
kinfolk, not on any official business--that remain with you for
days--sometimes longer. . . . Morrison proves there is no writer
who can craft, shape, twist, and bend the English language quite
like she can. . . . Home calmly lays out the horrors of war, abroad
and domestic, with the understanding that peace is sometimes
negotiable." --Patrik Henry Bass, Essence "Cinematic, poetic and
profound. . . . Home, is, at its heart, the tale of a man enslaved
(in mind, body, and spirit), on an uncertain journey to freedom. .
. . The concept of home in Home becomes a metaphor for the
cultivation of an inner strength and dignity independent of
external factors, shielded from the vicissitudes of an unjust
society. In Morrison's assessment, it seems that country can be
difficult to navigate alone, and relies not only on our self
acceptance, but also on the relationships and communities we build.
. . . [She] continues to beg the reader to reflect critically on
notions of identity, race, gender and class, and, perhaps most
importantly, to examine what me mean when we talk about freedom,
and the role we play as a community and as individuals, hand and
hand, and in a solitary way, in emancipating ourselves." --Chase
Quinn, The Grio
"Nobel Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison begins her newest novel,
Home, with a question: How does a man rebuild himself while the
world chips away at his soul? That is the problem posed to Frank
Money, a Korean War veteran returned to the United States after
witnessing the horrors of combat on the front lines. Now a shell of
a man, Frank finds himself on a journey to rescue his medically
abused younger sister and return to his home in small-town Georgia.
. . . The problem goes deeper than race or politics. It is not
limited to questions of black or white (or gender or economic
status, for that matter), though those things inform the issue. But
the problem, ultimately, is personal in nature. It's downright
spiritual. . . . Immediately, a reader senses in Morrison a seeker.
Her prose reaches out for answers to very difficult questions,
feeling its way through the possibilities of the story it presents.
She has the psychological acuteness to move beyond the realm of
parable and into the realm of tragedy. The writing is easy and
flowing but still elegantly constructed. And it doesn't settle for
easy answers. We do not know if and how Frank and his sister will
ever find redemption. In the end, we only know that home is a good
place to start. . . . A wonderfully pleasurable and rewarding
literary experience." --Gerard Martinez, San Antonio
Express-News
"Within its pared-down limits, [Home] tells a compelling story, and
the man at the center, Frank Money, is such a strong and convincing
character that we are not taken aback when Frank himself, speaking
in italics, interrupts the narrative a couple of times to set the
author straight on some details she got wrong. The novel is leanly
poetic, at times is very funny and is skillful in using symbols
without turning them into cliches. One of the best things about the
book is that it functions as a cultural and historical travelogue,
a fascinating commentary on crossing the country while black in the
middle of the 20th century. . . . A tale fit for an epic." --Harper
Barnes, St. Louis Post-Dispatch "In her characteristically
breathtaking prose, rich in all the contradictions that make us
human, Morrison transforms unthinkable suffering into incomplete
but believable redemption." --Pam Houston, More Magazine "Stunning
. . . A masterfully written novella that uses alternating points of
view, swift characterization-by-action and metaphorical symmetry
with a compression which is simultaneously a tour de force and a
tantalization. . . . . Regardless of narrator, the vividness of the
chapters and their concise accumulation of experiences give Home a
broader scope than would seem possible in so few pages. Morrison
unleashes her most lyrical language upon the foreshadowing and
depiction of Home's most brutal events. Her technique is
indelible." --Holloway McCandless, Shelf Awareness "Toni Morrison
doesn't have to prove anything anymore, and there's artistic
freedom in that calm. Her new novel, Home, is a surprisingly
unpretentious story from America's only living Nobel laureate in
literature. . . . 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. . . . Home is unusual, not only in that it features a male
protagonist but that it's so fiercely focused on the problem of
manhood. . . . Are acts of violence essentially masculine, or are
they an abdication of manliness? Is it possible, the novel finally
asks, to consider the manhood implicit in sacrifice, in laying down
one's life? What [Frank] Money eventually does to help his sister
and to quiet his demons is just as surprising and quietly profound
as everything else in this novel. Despite all the old horrors that
Morrison faces in these pages with weary recognition, Home is a
daringly hopeful story about the possibility of healing--or at
least surviving in a shadow of peace." --Ron Charles, The
Washington Post
"The title of [Morrison's] new novel, Home, refers to Frank Money's
Georgia hometown, which lies at the end of a long, tortuous
journey. Traumatized by atrocities in Korea and the Deep South of
his childhood, Frank races back to save his sister from a sadistic
white doctor. It's an archetypal postwar homecoming story,
reminiscent of The Odyssey. But it's really about the upheavals
that took Frank away from home in the first place, along with a
generation of Korean War veterans and southern black migrants,
during a supposedly tranquil and homey decade that was, for them,
anything but." --Boris Kachka, New York Magazine "A bona fide
literary event . . . an emotional powerhouse that more than lives
up to his pedigree. Told in the stark, economical tone of a short
story, with all the philosophical heft of a novel, . . . Home is a
moving testament to taking responsibility for your own
life--especially the parts you'd like to look away from. Grade: A-"
--Melissa Maerz, Entertainment Weekly "Triumphant." --Marie Claire
"Nobel laureate Toni Morrison is known for novels in which female
protagonists struggle to wrest control of their lives from an
establishment bent on their destruction. Home, by contrast, tells
the story of Korean War vet Frank Money, who returns from the
battlefield plagued by visions of his friends' deaths and a
disturbing episode that cuts at the roots of his sexual and moral
identity. . . . Salvation awaits, however, in his tiny Georgia
hometown." --Tim McDonnell, Mother Jones "Home's slim spine belies
a fertile narrative imbued with and embellished by Morrison's
visionary scope and poetic majesty. These traits expand on her long
exploration of the suffering and striving born of slavery and
segregation that are unique to the history of blacks in America.
Conjoined in all her stories and richly illumined are the culture,
traditions, talents, and triumphs of African-Americans as well."
--Lisa Shea, ELLE "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." --Stephan Lee, O,
The Oprah Magazine "Morrison's perfect prose [is] immaculate . . .
Beautiful, brutal." --Publishers Weekly (boxed and starred review)
"A deceptively rich and cumulatively powerful novel." --Kirkus
(starred review) "The Korean conflict is over, and soldier Frank
Money has returned to the States with a disturbed psyche that sends
him beyond anger into actually acting out his rage. From the mental
ward in which he has been incarcerated for an incident he can't
even remember, he determines he must escape. He needs to get to
Atlanta to attend to his gravely ill sister and take her back to
their Georgia hometown of Lotus, which, although Frank realizes a
return there is necessary for his sister's sake, remains a
detestable place in his mind. Morrison's taut, lacerating novel
observes, through the struggles of Frank to move heaven and earth
to reach and save his little sister, how a damaged man can gather
the fortitude to clear his mind of war's horror and face his own
part in that horror, leave the long-term anger he feels toward his
hometown aside, and take responsibility for his own life as well as
hers. With the economical presentation of a short story, the
rhythms and cadences of a poem, and the total embrace and resonance
of a novel, Morrison, one of our national literary treasures,
continues to marshal her considerable talents to draw a deeply
moving narrative and draw in a wide range of appreciative readers.
. . . bound to be a big hit." --Brad Hooper, Booklist (starred
review)
"Perhaps Morrison's most lyrical performance so far."
--Christopher Benfey, The New York Review of Books "Morrison
writes about psychological violence with an engineer's precision
and a poet's expansiveness." --Tyrone Beason, The Seattle
Times "Morrison packs a powerful narrative punch. . . . [Her]
depiction of the delightful ways black men engage in verbal banter
to exchange personal and collective memories, and the poignant ways
black women stand on their faith to deploy survival strategies only
they could design, makes this a novel that begs rereading. She
movingly describes people who survive and thrive, even when life
deals them painful, mean blows. . . . [T]he beauty of Morrison's
language and her profound truths about life and living compel one
to run the page and keep reading. This 10th novel shows that the
author is still questioning what we think we know when we think we
know someone." --Marilyn Sanders Mobley, Ms. Magazine
"Home showcases a writer at the height of her powers in
evoking a moment and its historical counter-currents. And it ranks
among [Morrison's] most readable stories. It is also, like so many
of her novels, a book certain to reward rereading: you can go
Home again. And you should." --Jim Cullen, History News
Network "Gorgeous and intense, brutal yet heartwarming . . .
like a slingshot that wields the impact of a missile. . . .
Home is as accessible, tightly composed and visceral as
anything Morrison has written. . . . [Her] shorter, more direct
sentences have the capacity to leave a reader awestruck. . . .
Devastating, deeply humane, ever-relevant." --Heller McAlpin,
NPR "The story of the warrior's struggle to return home is
classic, but Nobel laureate Morrison imbues her tale with twists
that make the journey more challenging and Frank Money's success
less certain. . . . As usual, Morrison's writing is both lyrical
and earthy and, although spare, dense with hints and meaning. This
is a book that can be read in one long sitting, and probably will
be . . . [A] satisfying, emotional . . . textured, painful and
ultimately uplifting story." --Anne Neville, Buffalo News
"In this slim, scathing novel, Morrison brings us another
quintessentially American character struggling through another
shameful moment in our nation's history. . . . Home is as
much prose poem as long-form fiction--a triumph for a beloved
literary icon who proves that her talents remain in full flower.
Four stars." --Meredith Maran, People "Beautifully wrought .
. . [Home] packs considerable power, because the Nobel
Prize-winning author is still writing unflinchingly about the most
painful human experiences. There's nothing small about the story
she's told with such grace in these pages." --Steve Yarbrough,
The Oregonian "Short, swift, and luminescent . . . The music
of Morrison's language, with its poetic oral qualities, its ability
to be both past and present in one long line, requires a robust
structure, a big space; a small auditorium simply does not suit it.
Home, then, is . . . a remarkable thing: proof that 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 threat of a looming curtain call." --John
Freeman, The Boston Globe "Part of Morrison's longstanding
greatness resides in her ability to animate specific stories about
the black experience and simultaneously speak to all experience.
It's precisely by committing unreservedly to the first that she's
able to transcend the circumscribed audience it might imply. This
work's accomplishment lies in its considerable capacity to make us
feel that we are each not only resident but co-owner of, and
collectively accountable for, this land we call home." --Leah Hager
Cohen, The New York Times Book Review "Powerful . . .
Home, the latest novel by Toni Morrison, is almost eerie in
its timeliness. Set in the 1950s, it does not evoke the martini and
pinched waist nostalgia of Mad Men. Rather, it calls to mind
the plight of today's veterans returning from the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars. . . . A hallmark of Morrison's magic is the way
that her imagination engages critically with several subjects
simultaneously, but Home is particularly intriguing because
it also seems to be a reflection on the author's previous works. .
. . . The writing reads like a love letter to a generation that
took the English language, lubricated its syntax and bent meanings
as the situation required. . . . The result is not poetry, exactly,
yet the characters communicate in such a way that there are subtle
metaphors in every exchange. The events of this narrative are
striking and arresting in the manner that one expects from
Morrison, the only living American Nobel laureate in literature.
Family secrets are revealed, brutal truths about the history of
race in America are displayed without sentimentality or animus. As
always, Morrison's prose is immaculate, jaw-dropping in its beauty
and audacity. . . . In addition to her reputation for gorgeous
sentences, Morrison is known for a certain brutality in her
plotting, and this wrenching novel is no exception. But Home
also brims with affection and optimism. The gains here are hard
won, but honestly earned, and sweet as love." --Tayari Jones,
San Francisco Chronicle "Morrison writes without airs. In
Home, even the most painful and devastating moments are told
head-on, not prettified to make them more palatable [or] heightened
to create a stronger impression. She builds trust with the reader
at every step; the events may be imagined, but Morrison is speaking
her truth, and we believe her. Here, as in her previous books,
Morrison's characters carry their histories heavy on their backs, a
burden that defines them and influences everything they do today.
The past, she says repeatedly, is always with us. It can't be
ignored or shunted aside because to be truly home in the present,
we must confront the past." --Amy Driscoll, The Miami Herald
"[Home] is compact, a novella really, and filled with
Morrison's signature style--clear, razor-sharp, poetic writing and
layered storytelling. . . . This story isn't about taking
responsibility for others. It is a tale about taking responsibility
for yourself. . . . The journey home, then, is not to a physical
place. It is an internal destination that each of us must find."
--Karen M. Thomas, The Dallas Morning News "If you are
familiar with Toni Morrison's work (who isn't?), you will want to
read her new novella, Home, in one sitting. It will take
only two or three hours, and that one sitting will help you keep in
mind the story's beautiful symmetry. Home is a reverse
journey, a return to an earlier place, a going back instead of
forward--at least physically--though it can just as easily be
argued that the protagonist (Frank Money) advances as much as he
retreats. And that metaphor of advancing is especially suitable,
given the fact that Frank has recently returned from the war in
Korea. He's been traumatized by horrific events but is equally
unsettled when he realizes that he's returned to the same racist
country he left before he departed to fight for America. . . .
Above all, Home demonstrates a sense of community, not just
within the physical environment of one's origins but also with the
assistance that total strangers offer Frank Money. The poorest
people in the country extend a hand, share, and rehabilitate others
when necessary. These values are shown to be so redemptive that
they cancel out what many people believe to be natural instincts of
revenge, of payback, of an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth.
. . . Home is an engaging narrative, full of surprises and
profundities." --Charles R. Larson, Counterpunch
"This haunting, slender novel is a kind of tiny Rosetta Stone to
Toni Morrison's entire oeuvre. Home encapsulates all the
themes that have fueled her fiction: . . . the hold that time past
exerts over time present, the hazards of love (and its link to
leaving and loss), the possibility of redemption and transcendence.
Once again we are introduced to characters who must choose between
the suffocating but sustaining ethos of small-town life and the
temptations and pitfalls of the wider world. Once again we are made
to see the costs and consolations of caring too much--for a family
member, a lover or a friend. . . . Whereas Beloved
mythologized its characters' stories, lending their experiences the
resonance of a symphony or an opera, Home is a lower-key
chamber piece, pitched somewhere between straight-up naturalism and
the world of fable. In these pages Morrison eschews the fierce
Faulknerian prose and Garcia Marquez-like flights of surrealism
that animated some of her earlier novels, adopting a new,
pared-down style that enables her to map the day-to-day lives of
her characters with lyrical precision. . . . Morrison has found a
new, angular voice and straight-ahead storytelling style that
showcase her knowledge of her characters, and the ways in which
violence and passion and regret are braided through their lives,
the ways in which love and duty can redeem a blighted past."
--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "Another dazzling
journey with Toni Morrison as tour guide into America's slippery
psychological, cultural and political terrain. In Home,
Morrison has given us another triumph of beauty and brutality both
in tone, language, and characters. Like her slim volumes The
Bluest Eye, Sula, and Jazz, the Nobel Laureate's
tenth offering reminds you of riveting tales told by a wise
stranger--not kinfolk, not on any official business--that remain
with you for days--sometimes longer. . . . Morrison proves there is
no writer who can craft, shape, twist, and bend the English
language quite like she can. . . . Home calmly lays out the
horrors of war, abroad and domestic, with the understanding that
peace is sometimes negotiable." --Patrik Henry Bass, Essence
"Cinematic, poetic and profound. . . . Home, is, at its
heart, the tale of a man enslaved (in mind, body, and spirit), on
an uncertain journey to freedom. . . . The concept of home in
Home becomes a metaphor for the cultivation of an inner
strength and dignity independent of external factors, shielded from
the vicissitudes of an unjust society. In Morrison's assessment, it
seems that country can be difficult to navigate alone, and relies
not only on our self acceptance, but also on the relationships and
communities we build. . . . [She] continues to beg the reader to
reflect critically on notions of identity, race, gender and class,
and, perhaps most importantly, to examine what me mean when we talk
about freedom, and the role we play as a community and as
individuals, hand and hand, and in a solitary way, in emancipating
ourselves." --Chase Quinn, The Grio
"Nobel Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison begins her newest novel,
Home, with a question: How does a man rebuild himself while
the world chips away at his soul? That is the problem posed to
Frank Money, a Korean War veteran returned to the United States
after witnessing the horrors of combat on the front lines. Now a
shell of a man, Frank finds himself on a journey to rescue his
medically abused younger sister and return to his home in
small-town Georgia. . . . The problem goes deeper than race or
politics. It is not limited to questions of black or white (or
gender or economic status, for that matter), though those things
inform the issue. But the problem, ultimately, is personal in
nature. It's downright spiritual. . . . Immediately, a reader
senses in Morrison a seeker. Her prose reaches out for answers to
very difficult questions, feeling its way through the possibilities
of the story it presents. She has the psychological acuteness to
move beyond the realm of parable and into the realm of tragedy. The
writing is easy and flowing but still elegantly constructed. And it
doesn't settle for easy answers. We do not know if and how Frank
and his sister will ever find redemption. In the end, we only know
that home is a good place to start. . . . A wonderfully pleasurable
and rewarding literary experience." --Gerard Martinez, San
Antonio Express-News
"Within its pared-down limits, [Home] tells a compelling
story, and the man at the center, Frank Money, is such a strong and
convincing character that we are not taken aback when Frank
himself, speaking in italics, interrupts the narrative a couple of
times to set the author straight on some details she got wrong. The
novel is leanly poetic, at times is very funny and is skillful in
using symbols without turning them into cliches. One of the best
things about the book is that it functions as a cultural and
historical travelogue, a fascinating commentary on crossing the
country while black in the middle of the 20th century. . . . A tale
fit for an epic." --Harper Barnes, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"In her characteristically breathtaking prose, rich in all the
contradictions that make us human, Morrison transforms unthinkable
suffering into incomplete but believable redemption." --Pam
Houston, More Magazine "Stunning . . . A masterfully written
novella that uses alternating points of view, swift
characterization-by-action and metaphorical symmetry with a
compression which is simultaneously a tour de force and a
tantalization. . . . . Regardless of narrator, the vividness of the
chapters and their concise accumulation of experiences give
Home a broader scope than would seem possible in so few
pages. Morrison unleashes her most lyrical language upon the
foreshadowing and depiction of Home's most brutal events.
Her technique is indelible." --Holloway McCandless, Shelf
Awareness "Toni Morrison doesn't have to prove anything
anymore, and there's artistic freedom in that calm. Her new novel,
Home, is a surprisingly unpretentious story from America's
only living Nobel laureate in literature. . . . 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. . . . Home is
unusual, not only in that it features a male protagonist but that
it's so fiercely focused on the problem of manhood. . . . Are acts
of violence essentially masculine, or are they an abdication of
manliness? Is it possible, the novel finally asks, to consider the
manhood implicit in sacrifice, in laying down one's life? What
[Frank] Money eventually does to help his sister and to quiet his
demons is just as surprising and quietly profound as everything
else in this novel. Despite all the old horrors that Morrison faces
in these pages with weary recognition, Home is a daringly
hopeful story about the possibility of healing--or at least
surviving in a shadow of peace." --Ron Charles, The Washington
Post
"The title of [Morrison's] new novel, Home, refers to Frank
Money's Georgia hometown, which lies at the end of a long, tortuous
journey. Traumatized by atrocities in Korea and the Deep South of
his childhood, Frank races back to save his sister from a sadistic
white doctor. It's an archetypal postwar homecoming story,
reminiscent of The Odyssey. But it's really about the
upheavals that took Frank away from home in the first place, along
with a generation of Korean War veterans and southern black
migrants, during a supposedly tranquil and homey decade that was,
for them, anything but." --Boris Kachka, New York Magazine
"A bona fide literary event . . . an emotional powerhouse that more
than lives up to his pedigree. Told in the stark, economical tone
of a short story, with all the philosophical heft of a novel, . . .
Home is a moving testament to taking responsibility for your
own life--especially the parts you'd like to look away from. Grade:
A-" --Melissa Maerz, Entertainment Weekly "Triumphant."
--Marie Claire "Nobel laureate Toni Morrison is known for
novels in which female protagonists struggle to wrest control of
their lives from an establishment bent on their destruction.
Home, by contrast, tells the story of Korean War vet Frank
Money, who returns from the battlefield plagued by visions of his
friends' deaths and a disturbing episode that cuts at the roots of
his sexual and moral identity. . . . Salvation awaits, however, in
his tiny Georgia hometown." --Tim McDonnell, Mother Jones
"Home's slim spine belies a fertile narrative imbued with
and embellished by Morrison's visionary scope and poetic majesty.
These traits expand on her long exploration of the suffering and
striving born of slavery and segregation that are unique to the
history of blacks in America. Conjoined in all her stories and
richly illumined are the culture, traditions, talents, and triumphs
of African-Americans as well." --Lisa Shea, ELLE "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." --Stephan Lee, O, The Oprah Magazine
"Morrison's perfect prose [is] immaculate . . . Beautiful, brutal."
--Publishers Weekly (boxed and starred review) "A
deceptively rich and cumulatively powerful novel." --Kirkus
(starred review) "The Korean conflict is over, and soldier Frank
Money has returned to the States with a disturbed psyche that sends
him beyond anger into actually acting out his rage. From the mental
ward in which he has been incarcerated for an incident he can't
even remember, he determines he must escape. He needs to get to
Atlanta to attend to his gravely ill sister and take her back to
their Georgia hometown of Lotus, which, although Frank realizes a
return there is necessary for his sister's sake, remains a
detestable place in his mind. Morrison's taut, lacerating novel
observes, through the struggles of Frank to move heaven and earth
to reach and save his little sister, how a damaged man can gather
the fortitude to clear his mind of war's horror and face his own
part in that horror, leave the long-term anger he feels toward his
hometown aside, and take responsibility for his own life as well as
hers. With the economical presentation of a short story, the
rhythms and cadences of a poem, and the total embrace and resonance
of a novel, Morrison, one of our national literary treasures,
continues to marshal her considerable talents to draw a deeply
moving narrative and draw in a wide range of appreciative readers.
. . . bound to be a big hit." --Brad Hooper, Booklist
(starred review)
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