66 pages • 2 hours read
Kate MortonHomecoming
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: Victorian Literature
Literature is an important thematic thread in Homecoming, and Victorian literature is an integral part of several characters’ lives. From the opening chapters of the novel, Morton references Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Thomas Hardy, three essential figures of Victorian literature. Jess, the protagonist, remembers discovering Charles Dickens as a child, and his books remain a touchstone throughout her life. Dickens was a prolific writer whose novels were designed to entertain a wide audience while delving into the inequalities of Victorian society. In addition to serving as vehicles to inspire social change, such titles as Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and A Tale of Two Cities are filled with memorable characters, adventure, and humor, and they have endured the test of time to become some of the greatest examples of Victorian literature.
Within the context of Morton’s novel, Percy Summers is also a literature lover. His lifelong passion for Victorian literature begins when he is bedridden with polio and discovers the works of Jane Austen. Austen’s work also probes society’s strictures, and with works such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion, she uses insightful characterization and biting satire to critique the limited position held by women in Victorian society. Her works also delve into the intricate social dynamics at work in such a closed society. The universality of Austen’s work is recognized by Percy, even at 12 years old, when he reflects that although the novels “seemed at first to describe a world quite unlike his own,” he “came to recognize the people in his town in Austen’s characters” (11). Percy also admires the work of Thomas Hardy, finding his own experience reflected in Jude the Obscure, a novel that focuses on a young stonemason who aspires to be a scholar but whose ambitions are stymied by a series of ill-fated love affairs.
Literary Context: Creative Nonfiction & New Journalism
While Daniel Miller’s book, As If They Were Asleep, is as much a work of fiction as Homecoming itself, Morton uses this story within a story as a handy literary device to relate certain past events in a more engaging fashion. Embedded within the larger story of Jess’s investigation, Miller’s book uses classic storytelling techniques to breathe new life into the otherwise dry facts of a true-crime narrative. Modeled after the category of real-life writers who use similar techniques, Miller’s work is representative of a specific approach to journalism that became popular in the 1960s. Known as New Journalism and practiced by such prominent authors as Joan Didion, the essence of this technique is rooted in creative nonfiction. Writers in this genre deliberately pushed the boundaries of journalism by incorporating fictional elements into nonfiction work. One of the most well-known examples of this school of thought is Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. Published in 1965, the book investigates and recounts the brutal murder of a Kansas family in 1959. Capote’s work is widely credited with bringing creative nonfiction and New Journalism to a widespread mainstream audience.
Within the context of Morton’s novel, Jess recognizes Miller’s tactics and cites him as “an early adopter of New Journalism, […] where fiction techniques were applied to nonfiction topics with the aim of bringing readers emotionally closer to the story” (163). Miller’s niece, Nancy, notes that he referred to the book as a “nonfiction novel” (282). While the subjectivity of such an approach raises the danger of sensationalism, Nancy draws a useful distinction when she explains Miller’s approach with the following example:
The fact that Mrs. Turner had observed her son John to become ‘effervescent’ when he was excited was more important to him than whether she reflected on it at the precise moment he records her having such a thought (283).
This example is intended to demonstrate that the techniques of New Journalism could be used to express the inner thoughts of a character, while still remaining true to the nonfiction aspects of the story.
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