Home is a novel about two siblings Frank and Cee who grew up very poor with a mean old grandmother, indifferent grandfather and parents. While growing up, Frank was basically responsible for his sister, Cee. He took her everywhere or rather she followed him everywhere and protected her. Eventually, he enlisted in the military and left home. Home told the story mostly from Frank’s point of view. We got to find out about Frank’s experience in the military, his inner/mental struggles, his failed marriage, his return home, his experience with racism, and his fight to rescue his sister from a psycho doctor.
After Frank left home, Cee felt alone and got married to the first boy that asked her out who ended up leaving her immediately they got settled into a new city. With no dime to her name and ashamed to return home, Cee got a job as a “nurse” for a home-based doctor who initially seemed like a great man who provided care to the poor. But he turned out to be a crazy scientist who used Cee for his experiments. Another worker in the home alerted Frank of his sister’s condition and he raced to rescue her.
Majority of the story was told during his journey. There where short breaks that allowed Frank to directly speak to the reader. Like the time he told us about how his colleague during the war in Korea killed a small Korean girl because the girl wanted sexual relations which aroused his friend and in an act of shame and disgust the friend shot the girl. Towards the end of the book, Frank confessed to us that he was actually that colleague who killed the small Korean girl. Instead of being disappointed and mad at him, I felt sorry and sad for him. Eventually, he was able to rescue his sister from the mad scientist and they returned back to their small town in Georgia where the women treated and brought his sister back to good health.
This was a short novel, the shortest novel I’ve read so far and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Toni Morrison knows how to completely insert you into her books and make you either one of the characters or an intrigued bystander.
Linda's Book Review 