Home
by Marilynne Robinson
- Used
- near fine
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Near Fine/Near Fine
- ISBN 10
- 0374299102
- ISBN 13
- 9780374299101
- Seller
-
Springfield, Missouri, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
1st U.S. ed. / 1st printing. NF book / NF DJ. Used copy though very tight and clean textblock and boards with full numberline. DJ has minimal shelfwear, no tears or chipping and 25.00 price intact. Not remaindered. Nice. See photos.
Reviews
On Nov 11 2014, CloggieDownunder said:
Home is the second book in the Gilead series by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Marilynne Robinson, and is set in Gilead, Iowa at the same time as the first book. This book focusses on Reverend Robert Boughton (closest friend of Reverend John Ames), and his family. Thirty-eight-year-old Glory Boughton, with a failed engagement behind her, returns to Gilead to look after her ailing father, Robert. A letter arrives, and Glory worries about the effect it will have on her father: “…the note might really be from Jack, but upsetting somehow, written from a ward for the chronically vexatious, the terminally remiss”.
Eventually, her disreputable brother Jack, an unemployed alcoholic, returns home after twenty years of virtual silence. Her father is pleased to see this favoured child again, one who went from “a restless, distant, difficult boy” to what Jack himself admits: “….nothing but trouble…….I create a kind of displacement around myself as I pass through the world, which can fairly be called trouble”. Jack is not the only one with secrets in his past, and he and Glory form a bond. His reconnection with his godfather and namesake, Reverend John Ames does not proceed smoothly.
They think back on their youth in the family home: “Experience had taught them that truth has sharp edges and hard corners, and could be seriously at odds with kindness” and “…lying in that family meant only that the liar would appreciate discretion…..as a matter of courtesy they treated one another’s deceptions like truth, which was a different thing from deceiving, or being deceived”. Glory is less than pleased to be in Gilead and dreads the thought of spending the rest of her days there: “To have [the past] overrun its bounds this way and become present and possibly future, too – they all knew this was a thing to be regretted”
Robinson treats the reader to some marvellous descriptive prose: “Their father said if they could see as God can, in geological time, they would see it leap out of the ground and turn in the sun and spread it arms and bask in the joys of being an oak tree in Iowa”. She touches on the question of racial prejudice and also includes some hints about the life Lila led before Gilead, a subject expanded on in the third book in this series. While this novel is somewhat slow in places, it is a stirring read and the final pages will move many readers to tears.
4.5★s
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Details
- Bookseller
- Backwater Books (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 9780374299101
- Title
- Home
- Author
- Marilynne Robinson
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Near Fine
- Jacket Condition
- Near Fine
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First ed., First printing
- ISBN 10
- 0374299102
- ISBN 13
- 9780374299101
- Publisher
- Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 2008
- Pages
- 325
- Keywords
- First Edition
Terms of Sale
Backwater Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Backwater Books
Biblio member since 2015
Springfield, Missouri
About Backwater Books
Terms of sale agreed. All books will be securely boxed for shipping. Collectible books from a primarily personal collection and described for such. Love my books, and would probably do a rehoming interview if I could. Please feel free to contact me via the provided email address for any questions, photo or additional photo requests, etc.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Shelfwear
- Minor wear resulting from a book being place on, and taken from a bookshelf, especially along the bottom edge.
- Chipping
- A defect in which small pieces are missing from the edges; fraying or small pieces of paper missing the edge of a paperback, or...
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.