Over 20 years ago, Marilynne Robinson published Housekeeping to good sales and some acclaim. In 2004 came her novel Gilead, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Now she has written a sort of companion to Gilead, which she titles Home. It takes place in the same small town as the previous book, with even the same characters, but it is not a sequel.

Home -- and the title is also the theme -- is told from the viewpoint of Glory, daughter of the Reverend Robert Boughton. At age 38, she has come home to look after her aging father and to escape and unhappy love affair. She has seven loving brothers and sisters, but she is the one who not only can give her time to the task, but also is seeking a refuge.

The reader is quickly in sympathy with Glory because she seems unselfish and devoted to the rather irascible old man. Boughton has been an energetic leader of his religious community and has had a difficult time letting go. He tends to be imperious and demanding, but he is also a sympathetic character. His long-time good friend and colleague, the Reverend John Ames, lives nearby.

Into this quiet setting comes the estranged member of the Boughton family, the “Prodigal Son,” if you will. Jack (named, by the way, for Ames) comes home after 20 years away (not even there for his mother’s funeral.) He is 43, a “ne’erdo well,” who has been a problem all his life. Ames remembers him as a mean-spirited, irresponsible boy who caused his family nothing but grief before he disappeared.

Boughton, on the other hand, has loved him unwaveringly, though he doesn’t understand him at all. Neither does Glory understand him, but she loves him as an older brother who was occasionally kind, the one who made the whole family uneasy, not knowing what to expect of him. He arrives home hung over and unsure of his welcome. Both Glory and his father want to welcome him, but are in their turn unsure how to treat him, wondering if or how long he plans to stay.

Jack and his father do not agree on many things, not unusual in father and son. Now they are being careful not to tread too close to old issues. They clash briefly while watching television news reports of racial unrest in Montgomery. (It is 1956.) Boughton brushes aside Jack’s worry, proving that he is not the kind of prophet who can see the future when he says, “In six months, no one will remember a thing about it.”

We very gradually learn more about Jack and come to appreciate him, and to suffer a little when his father leans a little too hard. Robinson never explains why Jack is the way he is, nor does he know himself. Glory recognizes his alcoholism, but it is rather a symptom than a cause. Glory and Jack have come home to an old-fashioned house in an old-fashioned town. Though they both do their best, Glory cooking, cleaning, caring for her father; Jack fixing the old car, gardening, shopping -- we know that Jack, at least, will have to move on.

Home is full of theological, philosophical ideas, but Robinson never preaches. She lets us know the characters in their searches for each other -- and for home -- in a moving, absorbing, beautifully written story.

Home is available at the Mary Willis Library.