Pete’s Pick
November, 2023
Homecoming
Kate Morton
Mariner Books, April 4, 2023
Introduction
This novel is about a person’s sense of home, as in a place to come home to, and the sense of identity each of us develops based on our genetic background as well as the sum total of our life experiences. It is an extraordinary examination of how our concept of home is very much conditioned by our life experiences and what can happen when something challenges those experiences.
Author
Kate Morton is an award-winning, international best-selling NYT and Sunday Times #1 author of seven novels. Her novels have been translated into 38 languages and sold in 45 territories. She was born and raised in South Australia and earned her degrees at Trinity College, London. Her novel HOMECOMING was selected as a LibraryReads pick for April 2023.
Story
This story is about a 40-year old journalist, Jessica Turner-Bridges, living and working in London being called back home to Sydney, Australia when she receives a phone call that her grandmother has taken a fall and is in the hospital. This grandmother, Nora, virtually raised Jessica after her mother Polly left her in the care of her grandmother when she was very young.
The story begins with a story about another family 59 years earlier (1959) which experienced a tragedy no family should ever experience. The facts and circumstances of that family experience will end up affecting Jessica in ways she could never have imagined.
We follow Jessica as she encounters her grandmother in the hospital. Unconscious and unable to communicate, Jess is forced to try to understand what is happening based on her interviews with Nora’s housekeeper and her care giver as well as going through her papers and correspondence back at the home where she grew up and then left 20 years earlier. Through her retrospection, we come to understand her sense of identity gained from her experience growing up in Nora’s home in Sydney. We also follow her as she reflects on the role her mother Polly played in conditioning Jess for who she has now become. And, we follow the story of the family tragedy that occurred 59 years earlier and how that ultimately affects who Jessica is today.
The story has a surprise ending which I did not expect and underscores the incredible feat of telling a homecoming story that Kate Morton achieved in writing this novel.
Evaluation
This is the first novel of Kate Morton’s that I have read and I have become a great fan of her writing style. I found the storytelling absorbing and intriguing in a manner similar to what I’d experience in a who-done-it mystery such as an Agatha Christie mystery, yet with much more of a hold on my emotions. I was captivated by the character development as the story unfolded and found the inter-relationships between the characters compelling. The points made throughout the story of the critical nature of self-identity in how we are able to relate to the world around us I found very challenging as I looked back over my own life experiences and how they have formed my sense of self identity. I have become a fan of Kate Morton’s writing style and look forward to reading her other novels.