Anderson Ferrell

In contemporary literature, telling a story in chronological order is simply not done. A story cannot be told without flash-backs, otherwise the story might actually be frightfully straightforward, or just too obvious. "Home for the Day" by the American author Anderson Ferrell, starts with a startling episode, situated in the present, or perhaps the recent past. The episode is a little bit puzzling, because nowhere in the book does it become clear why the father acts the way he does. Is it because the son is gay, or because he "wanted" to bury his deceased lover in the family burial plot? The order of the subsequent episode is more or less as follows: Clean-up of the burial plot; Meets his lover; Growing up gay; Story of the parents; Lover dies; Childhood; Burial of the lover.

The transitions between the episodes and not very clear, and the meaning of some episodes is vague, especially the story of the parents and the childhood; these episodes are only sideways related to the main story, the first episode, apparently exploring the theme of love, and the childhood episode exploring the theme of death.

Parts of the novel, particularly at the beginning, and very beautifully written, with a great amount of detail for the natural world, and very good dialogue. The description of growing up gay is original, and somewhat erotic.

But there are also episodes whether the reader loses track. There are three of four pivotal moments in the novel, but they seem a bit hard, while not reaching the optimal effect, seemingly because the introduction of these moments is too abrupt, and the story does not lead up to those moments (because of the botched structure). Thus, cause of the conflict in the first episode is not clear, the significance of the witnessed murder isn't clear, the death of the lover is not moving, and the digging scene at the end (not looking for worms), is too abrupt. The childhood story, the digging scene and the end of the novel are contrived and neither dramatic nor moving.

The novel has a number of strong moments, but unfortunately also a number of weak moments. Compare, for instance this example. After a paragraph built around the main character's wishes ("What I wish" is used in three sentences in a 4-sentence paragraph), the next paragraph continues:

"But it is my daddy himself who has always said that I want things the way I want them. It is my daddy who used to tell me to want in one hand and to spit in the other one and see which hand gets full first. It was also my daddy who said that I usually get things just the way I want them." (p.4)

The weakness, of course, lies in the substitution of the word "want" for "wish", and "spit" for "*".

The unnaturalness is emphasized by the fact that some remarkable details are included, while other remarkable details are left out. For instance, it is not clear what the lover, Pete, dies of. While the cause of death may not seem essential, leaving it out from a story that is roughly set between 1977 (1979) to 1996, is a bit strange. The effect is that the reader cannot identify as strongly with the characters.

However, there are enough strong moments to give the novel a sense of authenticity, which makes it, despite its flaws, a worthwhile read.… (altro)