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Paperback
Publisher: Picador
Format: Bargain Price
From Michael Cunningham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours, comes this widely praised novel of two boyhood friends: Jonathan, lonely, introspective, and unsure of himself; and Bobby, hip, dark, and inarticulate. In New York after college, Bobby moves in with Jonathan and his roommate, Clare, a veteran of the city's erotic wars. Bobby and Clare fall in love, scuttling the plans of Jonathan, who is gay, to father Clare's child. Then, when Clare and Bobby have a baby, the three move to a small house upstate to raise "their" child together and, with an odd friend, Alice, create a new kind of family. A Home at the End of the World masterfully depicts the charged, fragile relationships of urban life today.
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| No Revolutionary Road |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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This is an early novel of Cunninghams and display a strong control over, and confidence in, his craft. Clare has weight and grit and edges as a character. The dynamics of the created family between Clare, Bobby and Jonathan feel about right and they aren't glamourized nor is the situation turned into easy melodrama.
Here's what bugged me. The use of first person for a variety of characters without any of them having anything other than a narrator's voice. I had a hard time believing in the person talking. I just thought it was a device of Cunninghams. There is no society in this book about contemporary life nor choices that people make in that society. There very few characters other than those narrating the story. We get little sense of life in Cleveland in the sixties, or New York in the eighties. Yes, AIDS is present as is homosexuality but neither is treated with any kind of political or social awareness. AIDS could be any disease instead of a disease that exists in a very particular way in the lives of specific kinds of people. We really don't get any of Jonathan's struggle with his gay identity and what is Bobby? Bi-sexual or just a people pleaser?
I compare this book to "Revolutionary Road" in the title because that novel does present us with a society and people tormented by the choices forced upon them and their struggles to find self-expression. Its a dark, rich, anguished and engrossing portrait. Sadly, I didn't feel any of those things from "A Home at the End of the World."
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| another great novel by Cunnigham |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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This was my second novel by Cunnigham, the first being The Hours which I wanted to read after seeing the movie. I loved The Hours so much that I was afraid to be disappoited by any other novel of the same author. However, A Home at the End of the World turned out to be at least as good, which led me to reading Flesh and Blood and wanting to read everything else Cunnighham has written. And I will definitely want to reread A Home every now and then, which is why I decided to buy it and now rely on libraries.
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| Very satisfying Read |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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'At Home' is not exactly how I'd call the moment when the book concludes, but the process we are invted to participate in these compelling 300 plus pages, is at home, as interiorised as we could expect from literature. I haven't read a lot of Cunningham. Only his Specimen Days which feels more contrived than this earlier work, more arty, if you like. If you've shared a healthy dose of the period in which the novel evokes you'll sympathise with the brilliance of the author's meticulous descriptions. Cunningham lists the soundtrack of the era, the Doors, the Van Morrisons whatever to help us along the trajectory. The very reservations and acceptances of the generational attitudes to homosexual couplings is unparalled, so far as my reading has taken me. And the triangulated thing takes me into unexplored territory. The inter-generational manouverings are poignant though I was less convinced, less involved when the final Woodstock setting arrived.
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| The reading test |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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I learned about this novel through a Chinese student inquiry to a forum where I lend assistance to international English students. I was so impressed by the author's skill that I bought a copy for my self. It is a perfect reading for the under 35 generation and future generations. It tells a modern story. It tells it in a writing style that has survived he ages. It is written for reading.
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| Compelling story of friendship and love |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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A Home at the End of the World is an elegant study of how finding love in a world of fragile and impermanent relationships requires inventiveness, resilience, and a willingness to challenge restrictive notions of family. It was written circa 1990 by the acclaimed author of The Hours. The story is centered on Jonathan and Bobby, who become close friends and partners in sexual experimentation during their adolescent years together in Cleveland. Bobby is haunted by the loss of his adored older brother, his hero at 9 years of age, and then his mother a couple of years later. Yet he is less conflicted about what he wants in life. He has a strong need both to give and receive love. Jonathan is more bright and articulate than Bobby, but more uncertain of himself. He has an overly solicitous mother, who is prominently featured, and a mostly absent father. Jonathan, who is gay, falls in love with his buddy. Bobby sticks to him like glue but his deep devotion is more fraternal in character.
Jonathan moves to New York for college and stays on with his eccentric roommate Clare, who's eleven years older. They share a non-sexual sort of love. Bobby lives with Jonathan's parents until they move to Phoenix, then moves in with Jonathan and Clare in NYC. The three get along well until Clare does a make-over on Bobby and they become lovers. Jonathan's lingering feelings for Bobby leave him disquieted and he runs away. After Jonathan's father dies and Clare has a baby, the three come back together to move to a home outside Woodstock, NY (a childhood dream of Bobby's, passed down from his older brother). They open a restaurant, the "Home Café", which keeps Jonathan and Bobby busy and becomes a success. Clare is wrapped up in her child, whom Jonathan dotes on more than does Bobby, the father.
Bobby is the heart of the story, and was played by Colin Farrell in the film adaptation. He is the guardian spirit subtly driving the plot. He is the one who proposes moving to the "home at the end of the world", and he works the hardest to keep the family together. His attachment to Jonathan is remarkable, not least because it doesn't originate in sexual desire. Bobby winds up where he wants to be at the end. The "home at the end of the world" is his dream more than anyone else's, and it survives and will flourish because of the love he pours into it. (Although uncertainties are left at the end, extending the timeline of the novel a few years leads you to the strong likelihood of a happy outcome and lifelong love, given scientific progress over the course of the 90's.)
This is a moving work of literature which dazzles with its deft prose, but is most worth reading because it so powerfully evokes the deepest human emotions. Jonathan and Bobby aren't characters I'll easily forget.
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