Home, like Gilead, inspires reflection about some big themes like forgiveness, hope and redemption. Like others, I admire Robinson for these quiet novels of hers that show how fallible even the most pious and well-meaning of us can be. The characters in Home, their weariness and wariness as they struggle to love themselves and one another, feel like real people. The house and garden and the childhood memories came alive for me too...darn it if I didn't get hungry every time Glory cooked one of her Midwestern meals! Nevertheless, I found the novel tedious to read. The biggest suspense was whether the characters would move forward with their lives somehow. Occasionally I felt one or the other of them revving themselves up Desoto-like but (as in real life) nothing seemed to come of it; depressing. Have I been so co-opted by the fast-moving commercial novels of the 21st century that I can't adjust my speedometer to this award-winning author? It's possible but I also think it's an exceptional reader that has the fortitude to revel in so much polite misery.