Home

Home is a novel by the American writer Marilynne Robinson, published in 2008 and her third novel, following Housekeeping and Gilead.

The novel is a retelling of the parable of the prodigal son, set in the same Iowa town and at the same moment as Gilead. The Reverend Boughton is old and dying, and his son Jack, who was artful and devious in his youth, has come home after twenty years away. He is an alcoholic with two decades of secrets, and he is perpetually at odds with his father's beliefs while remaining the child the old man loves best. His sister Glory has also returned, with a broken engagement and a turbulent past, and she takes on the work of keeping the household running while the two of them circle each other. Much of the novel is made of ordinary domestic time, the reading aloud, the meals and the long conversations, and the healing it describes is partial and slow.

Robinson writes about faith and family with great attention to the interior lives of people who are not good at saying what they mean, and this novel is a companion to Gilead rather than a sequel to it.