Book 22 - Home It Is

Title: Home

Author: Toni Morrison

Genre: fiction

There is something so creepy about this story, so understated, that you don't realize it until those itty bitty hairs on your body raise themselves right up. Eugenics and a murder that seems to come out of the weeds; the sanitized inhumanity of male medicine juxtaposed by earthy female healing...

I wasn't overly interested in this book when I first put it on my list. Didn't love Home as a title, and the plot seemed too familiar to be interesting. War-haunted man heads home, faces some demons and saves some damsels on the way. Eh.

Lesson: never underestimate Lady Toni Morrison.

Yes, it's what seems like a linear journey; the reader follows Frank Money on his trudge back home to save his sister and confront his own internal ickiness. There's so much more, though, and it all seems to be crammed into the last third of the book. You know, I was reading an article where the author accused Morrison of giving up halfway through, copping out on what she had started and sparing the world what could have been a harrowing portrait of racial trauma. When I first read the article, I thought how DARE you, but now...I see what they're saying. This book ends just as shit really seems to be hitting the fan. There's some real horror going on, both on the inside and outside of all the characters, and that sensation of reeling, of being rocked back on my heels...maybe that's from all that buildup with no actual pay-off, no exploration of the themes she's been teasing out.

One thing is clear now, though: I can't think of a more accurate title than Home.

Rating: 🍓🍓🍓🍓