Home is a great book. Run to the library and get the audiobook version of "Home" and you will hear Toni Morrison read her book. It is a wonderful gift to hear her tell the story. Even though it's a completely different genre, and completely different medium, I had the same sensation reading "Home" as I did watching "Spirited Away" by Miyazaki. Or maybe Kurosawa's movie "Dreams" - the frightening segment with the dog and the soldier at the tunnel. Everything is surprising. Missing are the cultural stereotypes we are so used to. Home is steeped in a culture that - if you are not African American - you've heard about, but know nothing about, really. I found myself wondering how a person who doesn't know much about U.S. history would take this book. And in fact, educators might want to have their students read "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present" by Harriet Washington http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_... as background for this novel. Too, I wondered if readers would understand the reference to the "fellow traveler" who was fired by the doctor. To those who know the history of communists organizing in the south,, such references, like the Money family's backstory, are echoes of a people's history. The revelation about the killer of the Korean girl made me sad. I am reminded of Seymour Hirsch's account of the mass murders at My Lai, in Viet Nam. Hirsch said that it was white soldiers who did the killing - that the Black and Latino soldiers held back. The relationships between people of color and Native peoples - all of whom have internalized racism and white supremacy to one degree or another - is something that I need to study and if readers can recommend books to me that explore these relationships with any class consciousness please let me know. The Asian characters in Home are not treated with the same depth, but I understand Morrison's parameters in her tale. I was annoyed by the NYTimes review, which compared some of Morrison;s lines to "in text SparkNotes." Even more disturbing was the reviewer Leah Hager Cohen's conclusion, "Part of Morrison’s longstanding greatness resides in her ability to animate specific stories about the black experience and simultaneously speak to all experience. It’s precisely by committing unreservedly to the first that she’s able to transcend the circumscribed audience it might imply. This work’s accomplishment lies in its considerable capacity to make us feel that we are each not only resident but co-owner of, and collectively accountable for, this land we call home." That's what I call dragging out the teddy bear of Humanity. It was/is a horrible experience but we all share it, we can be comforted by squeezing the teddy bear and go back to sleep because the nightmare is over. Somehow this makes people feel better - we're all human, and now we understand each other better and the world is better. Not! I don't think it's possible for white people, for non-Blacks, to understand the Black experience. And why would the ability to speak to white people (as implied but not stated by Cohen) be a "transcendence"? I saw the Money's world as something outside my ken. For me, the only thing that gives me some sense of what is going on in the world is my limited grasp of history - that is, of capitalism - and the role that race and white supremacy play in the warping of all human, and in fact all natural relations. So while I understand Morrison's choices, I found myself musing, well, perhaps the "fellow traveler" fired by the doctor was Leonid McGill's father -- Leonid (Walter Mosley's latest detective hero) whose father was a communist.

Not the best read by Toni Morrison, but it was quick.

I'm an avid Toni Morrison fan and Home does not disappoint. Taking place in racist America in the mid to late 20th century, Ms. Morrison takes us on a glorified ride. The two antagonists learn lessons of pride, integrity, and forgiveness. Not quite the same caliber as Bluest Eye or Beloved, but I'm definitely keeping it on my shelf

Not quite what I exepcted from such an aclaimed writer but a good read. Will move on to a recommended read.

A short novella by the american nobel winning author . Set in the past - post Korean war - a damaged black war vet journey's home in a racist America to save his medically abused younger sister. But returning home stirs up memories of a difficult childhood. A good read, a compelling story that unfolds slowly so that we, the reader, learn of the protagonists life struggles little by little untill a whole picture emerges at the end.

Different than what I've come to expect from Toni Morrison, but excellent. Understated but deep.

It's a good story and one that needed to be told (like all of Morrison's books), but this one felt more rushed and less cared about than her earlier works, as though she was skipping over bits and pieces, not for the sake of concision, but because she just wanted to be done with it. Still worth reading, but not if you haven't read the likes of Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, and Beloved first.

Not my favorite of Morrison's novels, but that's still high praise.

Beautiful, breath-taking prose. Poignant story with many inspirational life lessons.

Excellent and engaging writing. I had trouble with the last couple of Morrison books so it was a treat to connect with her material again. As always, an important story is told from an African American perspective.