Exploring Uncharted Territory: My Quest for a New Experience

I embarked on this reading journey with the desire to broaden my literary horizons, stepping out of my usual mystery genre comfort zone. Unfortunately, my expectations of loving or even liking this book were not met. Lorrie Moore's "I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home" proved to be a challenging read for me, and I couldn't fully connect with its narrative.

In my quest to explore diverse literary experiences, I discovered a podcast where Lorrie Moore herself discussed this novel. She openly acknowledged its departure from the conventional structure and plotlines often found in commercial novels, emphasizing the freedom that authors of literary fiction have to explore unconventional narrative approaches.

The story is set in 2016 and centers around Finn, a high school history teacher with a penchant for conspiracy theories. The novel commences with his conversations with his terminally ill brother, Max, occupying the first third of the book. The remainder of the story follows Finn on a surreal road trip with his deceased girlfriend, Lily, who has seemingly returned from the grave and is not yet ready to find her final resting place. Their interactions, often tinged with dark humor, take place as Lily undergoes decomposition before ultimately settling into her eternal rest.

Woven into the narrative are diary entries dating back to around 1870, authored by an innkeeper named Libby or Eliz. These entries provide a historical backdrop, detailing the aftermath of the Civil War, and reveal that Libby, too, engages in extensive conversations with a deceased individual.

In essence, "I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home" is an unconventional literary work that delves into themes of love, death, dying, grief, and challenges the reliability of historical accounts. While this book may not resonate with every reader, it undeniably offers a unique and thought-provoking narrative experience.

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Wonderful book. Best I have read in a while. ( )

“Each of these stars is a star that died. Or could be. Are they in conversation? Part of a design? They each seem unaware of the others. And since you don’t know whether they’re dead or alive— their lives are many years further back than their look of life— their shine for us on earth is all the same whether we’re looking at dead shine or live shine. Starlight is simply performative.”

Finn, a high school teacher fond of conspiracy theories, visits his terminally ill older brother Max in hospice in the Bronx. They reminisce and Finn ponders over the impending loss of his brother and how they had drifted apart in their adult years. In the course of his visit, he receives disturbing news concerning his ex Lily, a therapy clown by profession who had been struggling with mental issues and whom he still loves. Finn leaves his brother watching the World Series confident that his brother will be alive the next time he visits and returns to Chicago fearing the worst. What follows is a most unusual cross-country road trip that has Finn reflecting on the ups and downs of his relationship with Lily and how they treated one another and themselves while they were together. Lily and Max are the most important people in his life and Finn’s journey as he grapples with his reality is one of love, loss, acceptance and learning to move on.

Interspersed throughout the novel are a few letters written by a woman named Elizabeth who ran a boarding house, to her sister in the post-Civil War years. The contents of the letters comprise a story in epistolary format, revolving around a guest in the boarding house who sparks Elizabeth’s interests. But when she begins to suspect his true identity, she is compelled to take matters into her own hands.

Imaginative and unique, with elegant prose in a dream-like narrative, I Am Homeless if This is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore is an absorbing read touching upon themes of family, life, death, loss, mental health and grief. In turn absurdist and bizarre laced with dark humor yet insightful and heartbreaking, this is an unusual novel, but I mean that in a good way. The two narratives are somewhat disjointed, intersecting briefly and though I can’t say that I felt they were much impacted by one another, I did enjoy the boardinghouse story for its humor and intrigue and ultimately its message. I would have liked it if the segment on Max and Finn had been explored in more depth, but overall I found this short novel to be an impactful read.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the digital review copy of this novel. All opinions expressed in this review are own.

“Did anyone really know what the story of a human life ever was? There were so many competing and intersecting and sometimes parallel and obliterating narratives. He sat there as remarks about life and death swirled around him. In life’s wrestle with death there was much suffering, and in death a diabolical vanishing. Suffering then vanishing. Suffering then vanishing. Did everyone understand that’s what they had signed up for, or really just not signed up at all but been drafted? Life was soldiering. Death was disappearance. Death sure had the power move. It had the black cape, the fine print, and the magic tricks.” ( )

When he looked at other couples, he did not know how they tolerated each other. They had just grown accustomed, he guessed. They had cooked each other. Each was the frog and each was the heated water. Still, he envied them a tiny bit. Their love in pots.

This novel follows two timelines. The first is letters from a woman living in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War who runs a boarding house. She misses her sister and is courted by one of her lodgers. The other concerns Finn, who goes to New York to sit with his brother who is in hospice care. Finn was in a long relationship with a manic pixie dream girl-type, although she seemed far more manic than dream girl. He's still not over her although she is involved with another man. When a mutual acquaintance calls and tells him he needs to return immediately, he leaves his dying brother and drives back to Chicago only to find the worst has happened.

This is an odd little book. Moore is known for her short stories and the epistolary sections feel like a full story in their own right. In the Finn sections, which form the majority of the book, Moore lets the constraints of reality go and tells a story that is fantastical and absurd, veering off into odd tangents. There's no doubt that Moore is an extraordinarily gifted writer, and if you're a fan of writers like Jesse Ball or J. Robert Lennon, you will probably like this novel. ( )

Beautiful writing, but the last 75 pages or so just get kind of rambly ( )