Notes On A Lovely Book

Glory had often reflected on the fact that Boughtons looked very much like one another. Hope was the acknowledged beauty of the family, which is to say the Boughton nose and the Boughton brow were less pronounced in her case. All the rest of them male and female, were, their mother said, handsome. They all passed from cherubic infancy to unremarkable childhood to gangling youth to that adult state of Boughtonhood their mother soothed or praised with talk of character and distinction, Hope being the one exception. So adolescence was a matter of watching unremarkable features drift off axis very slightly, of watching the nose knuckle just a little and the jaw go just a little bit out of square. So Glory's face had transformed itself in its inevitable turn. She remembered her alarm.

From Home, a novel, by Marilynne Robinson. When I began to read the book, I anticipated a pleasurable experience, because I'd read Gilead, by Robinson, a beautifully written story, with characters so alive that they become people whom you care about in the course of reading the book and even afterward. Characters in Gilead reappear in Home. On Bishop Alan's Blog, he and I discussed Gilead in his comments, and he said, "I thought Gilead was one of the most beautiful novels I've ever read — clear simple and profound..." I agree, and I'd say the same about Home. The girls in the family are named Glory, Hope, Faith, and Grace. If I remember correctly, the Reverend Boughton considered Charity for one of the girls, but his wife drew the line.

Home is the story of two siblings, of eight, who return to the family home in a small town in Iowa, where their father, a retired minister, who is old and ill, still lives. One, Glory, goes to help her father after a period of adversity in her own life, and her brother, Jack, returns out of desperation. It's a story of faith, of father, daughter, and son, with all the accompanying missteps, doubts, and hesitations. Biblical references and quotes abound, but not in a beat-you-over-the-head manner. They appear naturally, in the course of conversations, en passant. Many of the references are permeated with irony as Jack, the black sheep of the family, speaks them.

About Glory:

For her, church was an airy white room with tall windows looking out on God's good world, with God's good sunlight pouring in through those windows and falling across the pulpit where her father stood, straight and strong, parsing the broken heart of humankind and praising the loving heart of Christ. That was church.

The church could be a description of my church, except that the sunlight does not fall across the pulpit.

A conversation between Glory and Jack:

"...You're worried about seeing Ames tonight at dinner."
"Yes, well, it seems I've done as much as one man could do to make the experience embarrassing."
"Nonsense. Really. If he did see you on the street, what of it?"
"Good point, Glory. Perspective. Just what is called for here. Would he have noticed my discomfort with myself from that distance? Well, so what? A law-abiding citizen has a perfect right to feel wretched on a public sidewalk, on a Sabbath morning. Even to pause as he does so. Near a church, too. There's poetry in it, of a sort."

The father is a giant of a man, shrunken by age and illness, but still a force in the lives of his children. Jack, the black sheep of the family, is one of the most endearing and heartbreaking fictional characters that I've come across in quite a while. He lingers with me and, I suspect, he will continue with me for a long time.

There's no way that I can do justice to the book with my words. I was moved to tears more than once by the story but also by the beauty of the prose. I'd go back to read the lovely words again, and I'd weep. I urge you to read it and see for yourself. And then, if you haven't read Gilead, go read it, too. I get no commission from sales.

UPDATE: Listen to or read about the NPR interview with Marilynne Robinson.