Here's what I wrote about this read in 2012: "Down-home family dealing with various crises and challenges. Good story-telling and good vibes as goodness prevails." ( )

This is an absolute stunner of a debut, and I don't know how it wasn't on my radar until 9 years after publication.

To borrow a phrase (well, a book title) from the late [a:Lewis Grizzard|85317|Lewis Grizzard|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1303841755p2/85317.jpg], Ms. Wingfield "tore out my heart and stomped that sucker flat." Her characters are brilliant: I didn't just read about them, I knew them. I was there with them, and I felt their pain. Boy, did I ever feel their pain. But I also felt their love and their courage. What a fantastic journey the book was! I surely hope there are more books brewing in Ms. Wingfield's fertile imagination. ( )

Great novel about extended family, good and evil, religion, and young kids in the South just after the War (I think). Reminds me of books like Cold Sassy Tree, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc. Very worthwhile, but it does have some mature parts, so I'd say 16 and over or something like that. ( )

The Homecoming of Samuel Lake really earned its and I would give it more if I could. Set in Southern Arkansas in the 1950s, it packs several giant sized wallops to the heart and the gut.

The Moses family always had a family reunion on the first Sunday of June. John Moses was stuuborn about that. His daughter, Willadee pleaded with him to change the date. It was the same date that the Methodist ministers met to decide the fate of their pastors. Usually the Lake family in Louisiana had to move to a different parish year. Willadee and the children had to attend the reunion without Samuel Lake so that he could attend the important meeting in Louisiana. But tragedy marked the reunion and was echoed in a way at the meeting in the other state.The tragedy was a omen to me of what was to come later in the lives of the Moses and Lake family.

After the tragedy, the Moses family including Calla, John's wife and Willadeen, his daughter were torn with regret and grie. But Samuel Lake told unimaginable news to Willadeen, his wife. There would be no parish this year. He had angered the Methodist ministers by seeking out the poor and forgotten of the community to join his services. They had no home to go to. He decided to bring his family to Arkansas to live with Calla.

I have no favorite charactor but many favorite ones.

There was an incrediably mean man, Ras Ballenger, a wife beater, child abuser, a man who would kill the spirit of the horses that he was paid to train. When I read about him, my hands would begin sweating.

Samuel Lake who was very handsome, quick tempered but all heart.

Willadeen Lake who loved Samuel to the deepest part of soul, her mother, Calla who gained widom the hard way.

Swan Lake who hated her name and finds away into your heart and soul, with brothers, Noble and Benvile.

Toy Moses, big guy, lost his leg in the Civil War, saving the life of a black man and lost one of his legs in doing so. His wife, Bernice who was never satifed and wanted Samuel Lake to be hers. I hated her so much.

Blade Ballenger, kept running away from his father, finally family to the Lake family, a tough life for him and full of love for Swan.

Have I told you too much? I hope not! I hope that you read this amazing book. ( )

4.5 rounded up!

Jenny Wingfield's style of writing kept me flipping pages. In any given chapter, you'd hear from various characters, but it wasn't confusing at all. She is a screen writer, and she wrote one of my favorite coming of age movies - THE MAN IN THE MOON - which was Reese Witherspoon's acting debut.

The only thing that kept HOMECOMING from being a five star read for me was the ending. (no spoilers) While engaging, and satisfactory, (and not entirely unexpected) I didn't have that enthralled feeling I'd had for most of the book. The ending came with a hint of magical realism, which I never mind, and the actions of certain individuals were understandable/plausible, no doubt, but after a couple of events that would bring about the conclusion, I was more or less sort of skimming, just to know the resolution, etc.

Previously, I'd been gulping this story down, and couldn't wait to get back to it, so, for whatever reason, this was a bit puzzling. In other words, I didn't finish, and think WOW. I finished, and thought, well, that was pretty good.

This is a book I'd certainly recommend, regardless of my opinion of the ending! ( )