Synopses & Reviews
From Michael Cunningham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
The Hours, comes this widely praised novel of two boyhood friends: Jonathan, lonely, introspective, and unsure of himself; and Bobby, hip, dark, and inarticulate. In New York after college, Bobby moves in with Jonathan and his roommate, Clare, a veteran of the city's erotic wars. Bobby and Clare fall in love, scuttling the plans of Jonathan, who is gay, to father Clare's child. Then, when Clare and Bobby have a baby, the three move to a small house upstate to raise "their" child together and, with an odd friend, Alice, create a new kind of family.
A Home at the End of the World masterfully depicts the charged, fragile relationships of urban life today.
Review
"Narrated from the alternating points of view of its four main characters, this novel redefines such traditional concepts as love, sex, and, most importantly, family. Cunningham focuses on the necessity for compromise between the old and the new, making room amidst the social and cultural chaos of the 8O's for those not-yet-dead domestic values of the 5O's. Displaying a remarkable gay sensibility, Cunningham follows his characters as they navigate a changed American landscape in their search for a new set of roots. This novel, Cunningham's first, is an uncommon achievement." Reviewed by Andrew Witmer, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Review
"Cunningham writes with power and delicacy....We come to feel that we know Jonathan, Bobby and Clare as if we lived with them; yet each one retains the mystery that in people is called soul, and in fiction is called art." Los Angeles Times
Review
"Once in a great while, there appears a novel so spellbinding in its beauty and sensitivity that the reader devours it nearly whole, in great greedy gulps, and feels stretched sore afterwards, having been expanded and filled. Such a book is Michael Cunningham's A Home at the End of the World." San Diego Tribune
Review
"Lyrical...Memorable and accomplished." The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Novels don't come more deeply felt than Cunningham's extraordinary four-character study...The writing [is] a constant pleasure, flowing and yet dense with incisive images and psychological nuance." The Boston Globe
Review
"Cunningham has written a novel that all but reads itself." The Washington Post Book World
Review
"Luminous with the wonders and anxieties that make childhood mysterious...A Home at the End of the World is a remarkable accomplishment." San Francisco Review
Review
"Cunningham writes with power and delicacy...We come to feel that we know Jonathan, Bobby, and Clare as if we lived with them; yet each one retains the mystery that in people is called soul, and in fiction is called art." The Los Angeles Times
Synopsis
From Michael Cunningham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours, comes this widely praised novel of two boyhood friends: Jonathan, lonely, introspective, and unsure of himself; and Bobby, hip, dark, and inarticulate. In New York after college, Bobby moves in with Jonathan and his roommate, Clare, a veteran of the city's erotic wars. Bobby and Clare fall in love, scuttling the plans of Jonathan, who is gay, to father Clare's child. Then, when Clare and Bobby have a baby, the three move to a small house upstate to raise "their" child together and, with an odd friend, Alice, create a new kind of family. A Home at the End of the World masterfully depicts the charged, fragile relationships of urban life today.
Synopsis
From Michael Cunningham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours, comes the acclaimed novel of two boyhood friends A Home at the End of the World, now a feature film starring Colin Farrell and Dallas Roberts Jonathan.
There's Jonathan, lonely, introspective, and unsure of himself; and Bobby, hip, dark, and inarticulate. In New York after college, Bobby moves in with Jonathan and his roommate, Clare, a veteran of the city's erotic wars. Bobby and Clare fall in love, scuttling the plans of Jonathan, who is gay, to father Clare's child. Then, when Clare and Bobby have a baby, the three move to a small house upstate to raise their child together and, with an odd friend, Alice, create a new kind of family.
A Home at the End of the World masterfully depicts the charged, fragile relationships of urban life today.
About the Author
Michael Cunningham is "one of our very best writers" (Richard Eder,
The Los Angeles Times). An excerpt from
A Home at the End of the World was published in
The New Yorker, chosen for
Best American Short Stories 1989, and featured on NPR's Selected Shorts. He is the author of two other novels,
Flesh and Blood and
The Hours. He lives in New York.