Home

I sometimes forget how much truth there is in fiction. Or how much there can be. Today I stayed home from work (sick) and finished up Marilynne Robinson's newest novel, Home. Throughout the book I kept thinking how it couldn't come close to Gilead, her Pulitzer prize winner; I love that book so much, as almost everyone who has read it does. It is gorgeously written, so full of poignant, unbelievably beautiful moments and stunning writing. It is the most delightful book I have ever read. So I was prepared to be disappointed by Home.

I wasn't at all. It was a completely different experience than Gilead, a much more painful one, but moving and wonderful in its own way. I wept through the last ten pages as if weeping for my own life--that's how real the characters were, how believable and lovable. But they were also universal, all of us, people I know. I understood my own father and brother better than I ever have before by reading this book; in 325 pages I learned more about them than I probably ever could in a face to face conversation. In a fictional story set in a fictional place I found truth about my own family, the people I love. Isn't that amazing? This is why we read fiction; this is why we return again and again to the written word, to stories, to stories real enough to break our hearts and make us weep for ourselves, for our families, for all people. This is literature at its best...making us more human.

So yes, add Gilead and Home to your reading list.