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A review by nancf
I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore
3.0
While I could appreciate the evocative writing, this story was a bit too strange for me.
The book starts with a letter written from Elizabeth/Libby, a civil war era innkeeper, to her deceased sister. Such letters are interspersed throughout the book. The current-day storyline concerns Finn, a teacher, who is in New York, sharing last days with his brother, Max, in hospice. Finn, is then called home to tend to Lily, his some time lover.
While I was reading, I had no idea of where the story was going. However, it did sort of come together in the end.
"Finn did not believe in good anything. He believed in Interesting, Serviceable, Dangerous, Providential, Unlucky, Cruel, Mercurial, Funny, Unreal. He believed time was a strange ocean through which we imagined we were swimming rather than understanding we were being randomly tossed." (24)
"Sickness detached a person from the world and at the end shrank that world down to the size of a room, the walls of which vibrated and stepped slowly, slowly forward." (48)
"The photos of them together - smiling, entwined, behatted, insouciant - were like all photos: weak lies at the time, but full of truth and power later on. A weird form of time travel." (61)
"His life became a halting imitation of personal choice." (148)
"His old life seemed a swirl of smoke in a jar. He saw that no longer caring about a thing was key to both living and dying. So was caring about a thing." (191)
The book starts with a letter written from Elizabeth/Libby, a civil war era innkeeper, to her deceased sister. Such letters are interspersed throughout the book. The current-day storyline concerns Finn, a teacher, who is in New York, sharing last days with his brother, Max, in hospice. Finn, is then called home to tend to Lily, his some time lover.
While I was reading, I had no idea of where the story was going. However, it did sort of come together in the end.
"Finn did not believe in good anything. He believed in Interesting, Serviceable, Dangerous, Providential, Unlucky, Cruel, Mercurial, Funny, Unreal. He believed time was a strange ocean through which we imagined we were swimming rather than understanding we were being randomly tossed." (24)
"Sickness detached a person from the world and at the end shrank that world down to the size of a room, the walls of which vibrated and stepped slowly, slowly forward." (48)
"The photos of them together - smiling, entwined, behatted, insouciant - were like all photos: weak lies at the time, but full of truth and power later on. A weird form of time travel." (61)
"His life became a halting imitation of personal choice." (148)
"His old life seemed a swirl of smoke in a jar. He saw that no longer caring about a thing was key to both living and dying. So was caring about a thing." (191)