Does this story sound familiar? The year is 1956, and a minister in Gilead, Iowa is in failing health, and any day might be his last. Although he has led a simple, decent life, he is beset by worries about what will happen to his family after his passing, and is especially concerned about the fate of his son.
If you read Marilynne Robinson’s 2004 novel Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction, you will recognize this plot. But here is the surprise: Robinson relies on the same story for her new novel Home. No, this is not a sequel or a pre-quel: perhaps one could call it an ‘e-quel’ since Home is more or less equal to Gilead. It is the exact same story from her previous book, retold from a different perspective.
This is an unusual approach, although not completely without precedent. Lawrence Durrell attempted something similar in The Alexandria Quartet, while Raymond Queneau retold the same story over and over again—99 times, to be precise—in his Exercises in Style. Even so, Robinson will surprise most of her readers by returning to the very narrow focus of Gilead, and relying on the same settings, characters and incidents. Even some of the specific scenes and conversations are almost identical.
Yet Robinson succeeds in finding new themes and meanings in the same old events. The dying minister in Gilead was John Ames, while in Home it is Ames’s lifelong friend Robert Boughton. Boughton’s son Jack has returned after being away for twenty years. He wants to reconcile with his father, yet his life and values may be incompatible with the minister’s. His troubled and often irresponsible past is not likely to find forgiveness in the community, and perhaps not even in his home. In his present situation, he even feels he needs to hide from his family the personal circumstances that brought him back to Gilead.
Readers will inevitably be reminded of the parable of the prodigal son, but here Robinson shows the troubles and complications that are left out of the Bible story. Here is the tale of what happens after the prodigal son comes home. In short, we learn that killing the fatted calf does not resolve all of the frictions and uncertainties created when a family is split asunder.
The most fascinating moments of this novel come when Robinson takes situations from Gilead and gives them a new emotional valence and moral resonance. Jack Boughton’s long-standing adversary, Reverend Ames, was the hero of Gilead, and his Christian virtues almost glistened off the page in that book. Yet in Home, Ames comes across as a crotchety, unforgiving old man, and his unwillingness to take action is a major contributor to the miseries in the household of his long-time friend. One can’t help but be impressed by Robinson’s ability to construct such radically different perspectives from the simple facts of her twice-told tale.
Article comments
1 - Mike
Ted,
I'm surprised to see the assertion that Gilead and Home share the same story. If Gilead were the sequel to Home would you say it is also a story about a prodigal son? I think what you are driving at is Robinson's examination of the relationship between fathers and sons -which no doubt relates to her deep Christian faith (God and Jesus)- in both books. In Gilead, Ames sets out to tell his young son his story and the story of his father and grandfather through the literary device of an autobiography. Home, on the other hand, is simply a retelling of the prodigal son parable, and about love that is freely given despite person's actions.
I do agree, though, in your assessment of Robinson's ability to create new registers for characters from both novels, particularly Ames. His sanctity in Gilead is rendered more human in Home through his conflict with Jack. Ultimately, Ames is Robinson's shining creation precisely because she shifts our reading of him in this book.
Anyway, thank you for giving me this space to respond.
Mike Hess