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    Home: A novel
    Home: A novel
    Home: A novel
    Ebook135 pages1 hour

    Home: A novel

    By Toni Morrison

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group
    Release dateMay 8, 2012
    ISBN9780307959874
    Home: A novel

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    Reviews for Home

    4/5

    422 ratings38 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Frank Money is a Korean War vet who must make a perilous journey home after receiving a cryptic message that his sister is near death. He must navigate hospital wards, racist thugs, and his own shell shocked hallucinations. Frank's memories and the voices of his loved ones weave together to form the rich tapestry of this novel. Beautifully written, touching, haunting - a novel not easily forgotten.
    • 4/5
      Compared to Morrison's other books, this was a more direct and simple story. Its simple title also fits the plot to a tee. Frank was summoned home by a cryptic note telling him that his sister was in danger. He went home and rescued her from the hands of the doctor. She slowly healed with the help of the community. By all accounts, it seems a poor community but they made up for it in kindness and generosity of time and care. I was moved by the ending, adding another star to an initially 3-star book.
    • 4/5
      I've been working my way through all of Toni Morrison's novels over the past 4 years, but I've now reached one I haven't read before. I think this must be her shortest novel but it packs a narrative punch.  Frank Money is a traumatized veteran of the Korean War who travels across the country when he learns that his younger sister Cee's life is at risk.  We ultimately learn that the white doctor Cee works for, Dr. Beauregard Scott, performed an unethical experiment on her that leaves her sterile.  Over the course of Frank's travels we flashback to his childhood memories with Cee and the wartime incident that haunts him.  The book touches upon themes of family, the community of women, trauma, and racism in 1950s America.
    • 4/5
      I can't do better than this extract from an NPR review by Heller McAlpin:
      "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."

      It is pretty devastating, and very moving, and still hopeful amongst its relentless sadness. More direct and concise than others of hers I've read — I prefer the longer works, but the impact of this is undeniable.
    • 4/5
      Incredibly touching story, especially right now with the racial tension in America. It touches on many aspects of enslavement and how despite being uprooted, one still finds home in their roots. I have to admit, I absolutely loved the compost and integrated pest management mentions.
    • 4/5
      Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed this on audiobook from the library.

      Thoughts: This was well done and poetically written. It's a historical fiction about a Korean War vet who gets called back to his home town in Georgia to rescue his sister. He thought he had left the awful racism of Georgia behind, but is now forced to face it again with both the pain and good memories it brings.

      This was beautifully written and beautifully narrated by the author. It was an excellent look at the 1950's and in particular the racism of the era (which although better now is still sadly present). It also looks at veterans of that era and how PTSD left many veterans mentally wounded without any help being offered.

      I enjoyed watching Frank's journey through the American countryside on his way back to Georgia. Although, the casual violence him and his fellow African Americans faced was shocking and heartbreaking. Even more so because a lot of this violence endures even now, even though it's not as blatant. Reading about what his poor sister went through in his absence was just as heart-wrenching. I did enjoy that the ending gave some hope and peace to both of theses characters.

      My Summary (4/5): Overall this was a beautifully written novel about a PTDS stricken Korean War vet trying to make his way through a racist America back to his sister and the home he hates. While it isn't something I plan to reread, I am glad I read it once. If you are interested in 1950's historical fiction that focuses on veterans and racism, I would recommend picking this up. It's engaging and interesting.
    • 5/5
      I listened to this short book. Some of the text is set in italic, which I wouldn't have known, but the intent was clear enough from Toni Morrison's classic, slow, deliberate reading.

      Is this a book about the effects of the Korean war? Some. Is it about the effects of Jim Crow in the south? Some. Also a young man's trip through trauma to manhood, and the bonds of siblings, and the call of home. Listen to it if you can. I recommend it.
    • 4/5
      Interesting story and characters, moving, but not exactly my kind of book.
    • 2/5
      Story of siblings Frank Money and his sister Cee who grow up in an abusive environment in the small town of Lotus, Georgia. Frank returns from the Korean War suffering from PTSD. While he was away, Cee married, moved to Atlanta, and was deserted by her husband. Frank is notified that Cee is in trouble, so he travels to Atlanta to find her. On the way, he reminisces about his life.

      Morrison is describing a time of systemic racism, and vividly describes the harsh realities her characters face. There is a lot of disturbing content in this book, such as eugenics experiments, a man beaten to death, killing of a young girl by a soldier. In addition to racism, we find gender inequality, sexism, poverty, and senseless violence.

      I loved Morrison’s A Mercy. I could not love this one. It is one disturbing scene after another. I did not find anything new or enlightening – only a litany of atrocities. It is not something I should have ever picked up.
    • 4/5
      In Home, Toni Morrison tells the story of Frank Money, a Korean War veteran who embarks on an odyssey to rescue his sister Cee from a bad situation. Frank suffers from PTSD and severe guilt at having survived the war when his childhood friends did not. He has yet to reconnect with his family despite having always felt close to Cee. But then he receives a mysterious letter informing him Cee is in danger, and he is compelled to track her down.

      As Frank makes his way towards Cee, his memories shed light on his experiences during the war. And at the same time, readers learn more of Cee’s story. Cee had run off with a ne'er-do-well to escape oppressive small-town family life, and when that relationship failed found work with a doctor who practiced eugenics. She naively submitted to his “treatments,” with disastrous consequences.

      Reading Morrison’s fiction usually requires a certain willingness to go with the flow until I figure out what’s going on. But Home’s narrative is straightforward, almost mainstream in its approach. Cee’s situation was resolved in a way that was a bit too tidy. But I found her recovery, as well as Frank’s, sufficiently moving to warrant a 4-star rating.
    • 4/5
      Toni Morrison captures an elusive image--home--and drives it home through a series of circumstances and dream-like vignettes that show how idealized it is, but how much it drives our emotional selves. The relationship between brother and sister is by far the most beautiful part of the book. 4.5 stars.
    • 4/5
      A reminder of the brutal violent injustices of racism and the cost of war. The narrated to an outsider form of the central character's section is a bit of a puzzle for me.
    • 4/5
      This book is so strange. It is like someone chanting a dark litany. It is rhythmic and short, and all the events in it are almost biblical in proportion. Death and abuse, and yet the voice telling it is so pared back, that it feels slightly unreal. This has a really disturbing scene in it, in the midst of the Korea war.
    • 5/5
      Oh my! What a beautifully told story. I could not put it down. Toni Morrison is an extremely talented writer and I think I may need to reread all of her books this summer.
    • 5/5
      Somehow, this is my first work by Toni Morrison.

      Wow.

      It's a brief work, but no less powerful for its length. It is, in short, a story about people finding home - and discovering themselves. Discovering what they value and where the value in their lives lies. In some ways, it is also about the damage we do to ourselves and each other, either out of love or out of ignorance. The ending was as "happy" as I could've hoped for its weighty subject matter.

      There are some very in-your-face and painful moments of racism, or the effects of racism, integrated into the narrative. None of it exaggerated for effect, all of it realistic for the history of the institution in America. None of it comes across as gratuitous or unnecessary. All of it is powerful and a reminder of the narratives that exist across the spectrum of people in the world.

      Overall, just a powerful work with a lot to say about identity and how it is made, where and how we are shaped or choose to be shaped.

      I can't say enough about the impact this work had on me as I read it.
    • 4/5
      Particularly liked this book being read by Toni Morrison (pushed to the 4). Soft, deep, quiet voice. Very nice for the first person male. Made me think about it being a book by a woman, even as I read.
    • 2/5
      Not a bad book, but I didn't see a compelling reason for it to be written. If this was a debut book, I would maybe have liked it more - but it certainly won't stick with me like beloved or the bluest eye did. To me it seemed like she was writing this just to write.
    • 3/5
       This isn't a very long book, and it isn;t very hard to read, but it packs a punch - but it is surprisingly hard to put a finger on exactly why that is. Frank & Cee are brother & sister in the south. He escapes the deadbeat town by heading off to the Army and Korea. Cee gets into all sorts of scrapes, having always had her bog brother to look after her, she heads straight off the rails without him and ends up in a bit of a pickle.
      Cee's problem gets to Frank by a letter and he duly turns up to save her. But this time he can't out it right on his own and so they return to the small town that he hated so much. As time has passed, his experience of the town is much altered, and both of them show a sense of growth as people and the relationship between them changes. There is not a great deal of information in here, and you don't always know what is happening, or that what you do hear is the truth. But it is a compelling read.
    • 2/5
      A bit disappointed with this one. Morrison's natural talent for story-telling carries the novel, but there is a noticeable lack of depth and beautiful prose. Probably my least favorite of Morrison's, although I did enjoy the story and thought there was potential, just that the supports of the story (prose, diction, symbolism, syntax) did not form the rooted, steady foundation found in most of Morrison's work.
    • 4/5
      Classic Morrison. Prose here particularly spare. Of her previous novels, reminded me most of Jazz.
      Hard but hopeful?
    • 5/5
      Toni Morrison has written ten novels, and while Sula, the story of two friends raised together, who take wildly different paths toward womanhood, remains my favorite, reading a Toni Morrison novel is always an interesting and thoroughly entertaining experience. She has received the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Pulitzer Prize, and in 1993, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Home is her tenth novel.

      Frank Money has returned from the Korean War physically and psychologically damaged. To make matters worse, he returns to an America in the depths of the Jim Crow era, with lynchings and cross burnings. The murder of Emmett Till, and the bold stand by Rosa Parks were still in the future. He returns to his home, but finds it oddly strange – he barely recognizes once familiar people and places. He finds his younger sister suffering from medical abuse, and tries to rescue her. In order to do that, he must return to the Georgia town he hated all his life.

      Morrison describes Frank’s train ride home from Portland, Oregon. She writes, “Passing through freezing, poorly washed scenery, Frank tried to redecorate it, mind painting giant slashes of purple and X’s of gold on hills, dripping yellow and green on barren wheat fields. Hours of trying and failing to recolor the western landscape agitated him, but by the time he stepped off the train he was calm enough. The station noise was so abrasive, though, that he reached for a sidearm. None was there of course, so he leaned against a steel support until the panic died down” (27).

      Clearly, Frank suffered from what we now recognize as PTSD. However in 1952, Frank was unlikely to get help from the government, and he certainly was not likely to find any help or support in the community at large. Frank goes on a shopping trip for some new clothes with Billy. They buy Frank a suit at Goodwill, then head to a shoe store for work boots. When they come out of the store, they walk into some police activity. Morrison writes, “…during the random search outside the shoe store they just patted pockets, not the inside of work boots. Of the two other men facing the wall, one had his switchblade confiscated, the other a dollar bill. All four lay their hands on the hood of the patrol car parked at the curb. The younger officer noticed Frank’s medal. // ‘Korea?’ // ‘Yes, sir.’ // ‘Hey, Dick. They’re vets.’ // ‘Yeah?’ // ‘Yeah. Look.’ The officer pointed to Frank’s service medal. // ‘Go on. Get lost, pal.’ // The police incident was not worth comment so Frank and Billy walked off in silence” (37). Sounds a lot like the recently discontinued New York City policy of “stop and frisk.”

      Will Frank rediscover the courage he had in Korea? If you have not read Morrison in a while, Home, at a mere 145 pages will reintroduce the reader to this though-provoking, powerful writer. If you have not read anything by one of America’s great literary treasures – tsk, tsk – Home is a great place to start. 5 stars

      --Jim, 4/14/14
    • 5/5
      Frank overcomes the demons of his Korean War service to journey back to Georgia to rescue his sister from the eugenics doctor that employs her. Then he faces some of the demons from their impoverished childhood in Lotus, Georgia.
    • 3/5
      “Home” by Toni Morrison was a short book and easy to follow. It tells the story of Frank Money, his sister Cee and the lives they led as black Americans living in the South during very difficult times. Frank has always taken care of his sister from childhood, throughout the fleeing from Texas to their grandmother’s house until he is sent to fight in Korea. He returns a different person as many do after the terrors of war, but he still tries to save is sister again but there is an overarching question for me of who really needed saving. The characters in the book are very good, but it is a story with many sub plots for a short novel and connecting with the characters was difficult. It is a story of survival, discrimination, family and relationships. I give it a 3 star rating.
    • 5/5
      Another home run by Toni Morrison. In one short novel, so much is dealt with: PTSD, race issues, loss of loved ones, sexuality, and more.
    • 5/5
      This was an incredibly beautiful but so painful story of an African American brother and sister (Frank and Cee), who grew up in the 50's. Their parents were basically forced from their home in Texas and left to move their family back home to Georgia where they move in with Grandpa and his resentful and selfish wife. The children are raised in poverty and without a speck of sentiment or kindness since their parents are working continuously to try to make ends meet. The only thing they have is each other. That tie is a strong one the later moves Frank to return, post-Korea, to the home that he has no desire to ever see again to save his sister.
      Ms. Morrison writes of loss, both of persons and self, and redemption. She uses no spare words, and because of that each sentence holds much meaning. Home is a quick read that will stay with me for a long time.
    • 4/5
      Powerful, painful, and moving.
    • 4/5
      Toni Morrison is master of the English language. It doesn't matter if she's talking about flowers, or shoes, or syphilis, there is a rhythm to her words that feeds beautifully from one sentence to the next. It's that thing called “flow” students of creative writing are taught, the same flow instructors of creative writing have difficulty teaching. If I were a teacher of creative writing, and a student asked me to explain flow, I'd open up any Morrison novel to a random page of narrative and begin reading aloud. I'd ask the class to pay close attention to the placing of each noun and verb, the structure of one sentence and the next, the choice and sound of each word. I imagine it is an experience to hear Morrison read aloud.

      Morrison is also a very talented storyteller, when she has a story to tell. I've heard it said that she ran out of stories in the late 1980s (the Nobel curse, some say). I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I do feel that of the handful of Morrison novels I have read, the most memorable were those from the first half of her career. Her newer works are still brilliant in their language, but as I walk away from them, I feel as if I've read a beautiful collection of poetry that offered no lasting imagery.

      Home is such a work, however a clear step up from the previous A Mercy, a novel so thin on story it is forgotten before one can return the book to the shelf. The chronology and perspectives of Home are presented in a way which capitalizes on the language but doesn't do as much for the story. Nevertheless, there is a story here, still thin but recognizable, memorable and slightly haunting.

      Before I return to any of Morrison's post-Beloved titles, I believe I'll explore her entire catalog of the 70s and 80s. I like both storytelling-Morrison and linguistic-Morrison, but most days I'd take a good story over a beautifully crafted drawn-out vignette.
    • 5/5
      I wanted to start the year's reading on a high note, so I decided to read Morrison's latest book. It fit the bill -- spare, profound, humane. Morrison's recent books don't have the rich and lush descriptions of Song of Solomon or Beloved, but their resonance continues to ring deeply as she reveals the heart of the American experience.
    • 3/5
      Better a short story in a magazine than a book. Cee's story, while the most interesting is left undeveloped.
    • 5/5
      Toni Morrison's newest book, Home, is a beautifully written story about a sister and brother growing up in Jim Crow south. Frank Money is a Korean war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress. His sister, Cee, has suffered trauma of her own. Together they find home, and healing.

    Book preview

    Home - Toni Morrison

    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 one here had plenty of 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.

    TWO

    Breathing. How to do it so no one would know he was awake. Fake a deep rhythmic snore, drop the bottom lip. Most important, the eyelids should not move and there must be a regular heartbeat and limp hands. At 2:00 a.m. when they checked to determine if he needed another immobilizing shot they would see the patient on the second floor in Room 17, sunk in a morphine sleep. If convinced, they might skip the shot and loosen his cuffs, so his hands could enjoy some blood. The trick of imitating semi-coma, like playing dead facedown in a muddy battlefield, was to concentrate on a single neutral object. Something that would smother any random hint of life. Ice, he thought, a cube of it, an icicle, an ice-crusted pond, or a frosted landscape. No. Too much emotion attached to frozen hills. Fire, then? Never. Too active. He would need something that stirred no feelings, encouraged no memory—sweet or shameful. Just searching for such an item was agitating. Everything reminded him of something loaded with pain. Visualizing a blank sheet of paper drove his mind to the letter he had gotten—the one that had closed his throat: Come fast. She be dead if you tarry. Finally, he settled on the chair in the corner of the room as his neutral object. Wood. Oak. Lacquered or stained. How many slats in its back? Was the seat flat or curved for a bottom? Hand-crafted or machine-made? If hand-crafted, who was the carpenter and where did he get his lumber? Hopeless. The chair was provoking questions, not blank indifference. What about the ocean on a cloudy day seen from the deck of a troopship—no horizon or hope of one? No. Not that, because among the bodies kept cool below some, maybe, were his homeboys. He would have to concentrate on something else—a night sky, starless, or, better, train tracks. No scenery, no trains, just endless, endless tracks.

    They had taken his shirt and laced boots but his pants and army jacket (neither an effective suicide instrument) were hanging in the locker. He only had to get down the hall to the exit door that was never locked after a fire broke out on that floor and a nurse and two patients died. That was the story Crane, the chatterbox orderly, rapidly chewing gum while washing the patient’s armpits, had told him, but he believed it was a simple cover story for the staff’s smoke breaks. His first escape plan was to knock Crane out when next he came to clean up his soiling. That required loosening the cuffs, and it was too chancy, so he chose another strategy.

    Two days earlier, when he was handcuffed in the backseat of the patrol car, he had swerved his head wildly to see where he was and where he was going. He had never been in this neighborhood. Central City was his territory. Nothing in particular stood out except the violent neon of a diner sign and a huge yard sign for a tiny church: AME Zion. If he succeeded in getting through the fire exit that’s where he would head: to Zion. Still, before escape, he would have to get shoes somehow, some way. Walking anywhere in winter without shoes would guarantee his being arrested and back in the ward until he could be sentenced for vagrancy. Interesting law, vagrancy, meaning standing outside or walking without clear purpose anywhere. Carrying a book would help, but being barefoot would contradict purposefulness and standing still could prompt a complaint of loitering. Better than most, he knew that being outside wasn’t necessary for legal or illegal disruption. You could be inside, living in your own house for years, and still, men with or without badges but always with guns could force you, your family, your neighbors to pack up and move—with or without shoes. Twenty years ago, as a four-year-old, he had a pair, though the sole of one flapped with every step. Residents of fifteen houses had been ordered to leave their little neighborhood on the edge of town. Twenty-four hours, they were told, or else. Else meaning die. It was early morning when the warnings came, so the balance of the day was confusion, anger, and packing. By nightfall most were pulling out—on wheels if available, on foot if not. Yet, in spite of the threats from men, both hooded and not, and pleadings from neighbors, one elderly man named Crawford sat on his porch steps and refused to vacate. Elbows on knees, hands clasped, chewing tobacco, he waited the whole night. Just after dawn at the twenty-fourth hour he was beaten to death with pipes and rifle butts and tied to the oldest magnolia tree in the county—the one that grew in his own yard. Maybe it was loving that tree which, he used to brag, his great-grandmother had planted, that made him so stubborn. In the dark of night, some of the fleeing neighbors snuck back to untie him and bury him beneath his beloved magnolia. One of the gravediggers told everyone who would listen that Mr. Crawford’s eyes had been carved out.

    Although shoes were vital for this escape, the patient had none. Four a.m., before sunrise, he managed to loosen the canvas cuffs, unshackle himself, and rip off the hospital gown. He put on his army pants and jacket and crept shoeless down the hall. Except for the weeping from the room next to the fire exit, all was quiet—no squeak of an orderly’s shoes or smothered giggles, and no smell of cigarette smoke. The hinges groaned when he opened the door and the cold hit him like a hammer.

    The iced iron of the fire escape steps was so painful he jumped over the railing to sink his feet into the warmer snow on the ground. Maniac moonlight doing the work of absent stars matched his desperate frenzy, lighting his hunched shoulders and footprints left in the snow. He had his service medal in his pocket but no change, so it never occurred to him to look for a phone booth to call Lily. He wouldn’t have anyway, not only because of their chilly parting, but also because it would shame him to need her now—a barefoot escapee from the nuthouse. Holding his collar tight at his throat, avoiding shoveled pavement for curb snow, he ran the six

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