Home, by Marilynne Robinson

I first saw the film The Bad Seed when I was 10 or 11 and didn’t quite know what to make of it. Was it possible that people could be born bad? For weeks I pondered questions of fate and free will, thinking too about the myths and legends I’d read: Oedipus destined to kill his father and marry his mother, Sleeping Beauty ordained from birth to prick her finger on a spindle.

Home retells the events of Robinson’s earlier book Gilead (which I blogged about in February) from the point of view of Glory, daughter of John Ames’s great friend Boughton and sister of the ne’er-do-well Jack. As the story opens, Glory has returned to Gilead to care for her elderly father who is nearing the end of his life. Then one day Jack, from whom they have heard not a word for decades, suddenly turns up, graceful, shabby, hungover.

I spent a lot of time thinking about Jack. The people of Gilead think that he was born bad, given the things he got up to when he was a boy. Ames sees Jack as a rogue, with a rakish self-confidence, who is a disruptive influence on Ames’s family. Glory sees Jack as broken and lonely, disgusted with himself, and inexpressibly weary.

I know people like him: smart, talented, charismatic, the golden child, yet somehow never quite succeeding in life, ending up existing on the fringes of society. It is not an easy thing, forging your own path instead of following the wide, paved road dictated by society. The stereotype is that such a person is a criminal or an addict, hating himself, just as Glory sees Jack. But I have known more than one lone wolf who is happy with his or her life, who still believes the benefits of going your own way outweigh the costs. Society may aver that they would be happier married, with two children and a dog, working 9-5 to pay the mortgage on a house behind a white picket fence, but they know better.

Glory is the one who wants all that, but seems destined never to have it. She longs for children and her own home, which she envisions as a modern cottage full of light and air. However, she is amazingly patient with her father, whose increasing demands and combination of irritation and sentimentality will be only too familiar to those who have dealt with aging parents or geriatric patients.

Jack and Glory are not the only characters I found myself sympathising with. Just as Ames’s worried about how his wife and young son would manage after his death, so Boughton’s last days are tormented by worry about Jack.

I liked this book better than Gilead though I missed Ames’s voice and his appreciative and positive view of the world. I’m still left with the impression of secrets unrevealed, revelations withheld. I have my own ideas of what they may be, but will leave you to discover your own.

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