Home by Toni Morrison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**spoiler alert** Toni Morrison’s novella, Home, depicts Frank Money’s challenging journey of self-acceptance and self-forgiveness upon his return from the Korean War, while at the same time highlighting the socio-economic and racial issues with which he and his family are forced to face and overcome. Morrison opens Home with a scene just outside of Lotus, Georgia, in which Frank and his younger sister Cee accidentally stumble across and witness the burial of a body that still “quivered” (Morrison, Home). The only part of the body they can see is described by Frank as a, “black foot with its creamy pink and mud-streaked sole being whacked into the grave” (Morrison, Home). Initially, it is their curiosity that leads them into the field where they watch two horses fighting when suddenly, they unwittingly find themselves trapped as involuntary spectators to a gruesome burial. The event would haunt Frank for years to come and unbeknownst to him, would play an important role in his ability to accept and forgive himself after his return from the Korean War.
Frank, a black man, had experienced his family being forced from their home in Bandera County, Texas, at the age of four, “Twenty-four hours, they were told, or else. ‘Else’ meaning ‘die’” (Morrison, Home). The Money family, with nowhere else to go, winds up in Lotus, and moves into his Grandmother, Lenore’s, home. Frank and his family live with his Grandparents in Lotus until he decides to enlist as a young man. Much to the disappointment of Cee, and with no hope for advancement or options for self-improvement in Lotus, Frank enlists. He tells Cee, “Lotus was suffocating, killing him and his two best friends” (Morrison, Home).
During his time in the Korean War, Frank experiences the unforgettable loss of his two closest friends from Lotus, with whom he had enlisted. He also experiences shooting a young Korean girl for what he describes as “tempting” (Morrison, Home) him. Unable to accept or admit that it was he who had shot her, he initially tells the story depicting himself solely as a spectator who watches his “relief guard” (Morrison, Home) shoot her. His inability to accept his own unspeakable actions causes him to, “cover his guilt and shame with big-time mourning for his dead buddies” (Morrison, Home). He admits this cowardly behavior directly to the reader in chapters fourteen and fifteen. He justifies his actions by saying, “How could I let her live after she took me down to a place I didn’t know was in me?” (Morrison, Home).
Upon his return from the Korean War, Frank is institutionalized in a mental hospital from which he subsequently escapes after receiving word that Cee’s life is in danger. Without fully understanding the type of danger she is in, Frank makes it his sole goal and purpose to return to Georgia and save her. Struggling to deal with his relentless symptoms of post-traumatic stress that are wreaking havoc in every aspect of his life, he finds a much-welcomed and renewed purpose in his drive to save his sister.
After saving Cee from Dr. Beauregard Scott’s experimental table in Georgia, Morrison cleverly closes Home with a scene that takes us full-circle on Frank’s journey. The scene is of Frank and Cee unearthing the bones of the same body they watched buried years before in the field just outside of Lotus, only to give it a proper burial alongside the river in the first quilt that Cee had ever made.
Like many of Toni Morrison’s works, Home is filled with scenes and dialogue that effortlessly portray the effects of racial and socio-economic oppression as well as the challenges and struggles endured to overcome them. Through her use of Frank as the main character, Morrison is able to make his journey the reader’s journey. It becomes personal and we feel what Frank feels when she writes, “There were very few passengers, yet Frank dutifully sat in the last seat,” (Morrison, Home). Home is set in a time when racial equality did not exist and as Frank put it, “You could be inside, living in your own house for years, and still, men with or without badges but always with guns could force you, your family, your neighbors to pack up and move—with or without shoes” (Morrison, Home). This thread is continuous throughout Frank’s journey in the book and is highlighted at nearly each and every interaction he has with other characters along the way.
Typical of her writing style, Morrison provides her characters with seemingly insurmountable challenges but also provides them with the tools, and more importantly a glimmer of hope, necessary to overcome those challenges. In Home, Morrison provides that tool in the form of a sense of community, whether it is the willingness of Frank’s grandparents to take the Money family in after being displaced from their home, or the unwavering determination displayed by the women who through their selfless caregiving efforts, successfully facilitate Cee’s full recovery.
The book is a quick and easy read and Frank’s character makes it easy for us to cling to him and follow throughout. While Frank’s character is well developed, most of the other characters’ development is lacking. This does not in any way take away from Morrison’s effectiveness with telling Frank’s story, the story of a black man who through many personal trials and tribulations was eventually able to acknowledge and accept his own imperfections on his way to becoming a man. It took him years, but finally after returning home to Lotus, and just like the sign that Frank nailed on the tree after he and Cee reburied the body that they so long ago watched buried in horror said, “Here Stands A Man” (Morrison, Home). Frank had come full circle and become a man.
I felt the book did a good job at keeping me attentive and interested. This was due to Morrison’s lyrical writing style and the short chapters that quickened the pace. I also enjoyed and welcomed how some chapters were simply and completely nothing more than Frank’s thoughts. Oftentimes these thoughts were enlightening admissions of the inaccuracies or omissions being written about him up to that point in the story. Initially, these moments of clarity and sometimes challenges for the author caught me off guard but then I started to look forward to them and the channel of honesty Morrison was providing Frank through their use. I thought it was a clever and refreshing way to keep the story honest and to share what really happened with the reader.
If you haven’t read Morrison’s novella Home, I would recommend it to anyone interested in a quick and easy read that provides an honest look into the socio-economic and racial oppression faced by one black man during his personal journey of self-acceptance and self-forgiveness during the Korean War era.
James
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