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Home is my first book by Toni Morrison: I picked it because it was the easiest to find at the library, and I kept seeing the author's name in my friends reviews. I believe I've stumbled upon something good. If I go by the ratings and the mixed reviews here at Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, I expect I will run out of stars to give when I get to her more notorious novels, seeing as I couldn't give less than five stars on my first experience of the author's work. I could find no real fault with the presentation. Some reviewers have called the book unsophisticated, underdeveloped and the characterization shallow, but I believe the simple, straightforward style of storytelling fits the subject like a glove. My reaction to the book was primarily on the emotional, not the critical level, in almost total anithesis to a similar book I read this year about people in distress ( The Book Thief ) when I kept finding fault with the general tone and the melodrama overload. Morrison is more understated, introverted, less angry than, for example, Walter Mosley, but in her own way, more convincing.

This is the story of Frank and Icedra (Cee) Money, two outcasts in search of a a safe haven, in a 1950's America that was still fiercely segregated. There is an almost mythological, biblical angle to the story, echoing the ancient tales of Aeneas quest for the promised land after the fall of Troy or the Exodus from Egypt of the Israelites. Frank witnessed as a child the eviction at gunpoint of his family from their Texas homes and the troubled resettlement in the dirt poor town of Lotus, Georgia. Growing up, he takes care of his sister Cee and dreams of escape from poverty and hopelessness. He seizes the chance of fighting in the Corean War, and leaves with two buddies to make his fortune in the larger world. Left alone in Lotus, Cee falls under the spell of a smooth operator from Atlanta and runs away herself.

If she hadn't been so ignorant living in a no-count, not-even-a-town place with only chores, church-school, and nothing else to do, she would have known better.

The novel shows the road Frank, his mind destroyed by war nightmares and alcohol, and Cee, abandoned by her lover and trapped in the house of a dubious medical practitioner, take in order to return to Lotus and the efforts they make to put their lives back together. The journey is primarily a spiritual, not a geographical one, with the emphasis on self awareness, dignity and community support, religious and secular alike.

Look to yourself. You free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you. Seed your own land. You young and a woman and there's serious limitation in both, but you a person too. Don't let [others] decide who you are. That's slavery. Somewhere inside you is that free person I'm talking about. Locate her and let her do some good in the world.

The lessons learned by Frank and his sister apply to more than the plight of African-American community and the period described here, to wherever and whenever a group of people is discriminated against based on their skin colour, sex, religion or economic affluence. The need to belong, to be respected, to be secure in your house and in your work - are as powerful and threatened today as they were in the 1950's. Most often than not succour and understanding is to be found not among the powerful, but among the dispossessed, who have been through the wringer themselves, and who would share more readily from their meager belongings. Their talk may be rough, and their expressions of love hard edged, but I found them genuine and moving;

... Men know a slop jar when they see one!

... You a privy or a woman?

... Who told you you was trash?

... If you don't respect yourself, why should anybody else?

So, the way out is through family and community and education, but most important of all is the HOME : the place, the people, the spirituality:

It was bright, brighter than he remembered. The sun, having sucked away the blue from the sky, loitered there in a white heaven, menacing Lotus, torturing its landscape, but failing, failing, constantly failing to silence it: children still laughed, ran, shouted their games; women sang in their backyards while pinning wet sheets on clotheslines; occasionally a soprano was joined by a neighboring alto or a tenor just passing by. "Take me to the water. Take me to the water. Take me to the water. To be baptized."
[...]
The sun did her best to burn away the blessed peace found under the wide old trees; did her best to ruin the pleasure of being among those who do not want to degrade or destroy you. Try as she might, she could not scorch the yellow butterflies away from the scarlet rosebushes, nor choke the songs of birds. Her punishing heat did not interfere with Mr. Fuller and his nephew sitting in the bed of a truck - the boy on a mouth organ, the man on a six-string banjo. The nephew's bare feet swayed; the uncle's left foot tapped out the beat. Color, silence, and music enveloped him.

Musical background :
- Delta Blues of course - Bessie Smith, Elmore James, Robert Johnson, John Lee hooker
- Instrumental Jazz - New Orleans
- Tracy Chapman