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Homeplace

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After twenty-one years Micah (Mike) Winship is making the big move--she's going home for a visit. She hasn't been back since 1963, when her father threw her out, but now he is dying and asking for her. And although she is armed with her succesful journalism career and the strength found after her divorce, she is nearing forty and her sophisticated urban lifestyle is falling apart.

Heading home, Mike is unprepared for a past that has lain in wait for her--one that includes an old love, a spoiled sister, and a plot to seize her family's land. And in trying to understand her long-forgotten self, she learns at last those lessons best learned early about love and loss, family and forgiveness, and the undeniable need for a place called home.

419 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 1, 1987

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About the author

Anne Rivers Siddons

51 books1,261 followers
Born Sybil Anne Rivers in Atlanta, Georgia, she was raised in Fairburn, Georgia, and attended Auburn University, where she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta Sorority.

While at Auburn she wrote a column for the student newspaper, The Auburn Plainsman, that favored integration. The university administration attempted to suppress the column, and ultimately fired her, and the column garnered national attention. She later became a senior editor for Atlanta magazine.

At the age of thirty she married Heyward Siddons, and she and her husband lived in Charleston, South Carolina, and spent summers in Maine. Siddons died of lung cancer on September 11, 2019

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5 stars
1,075 (34%)
4 stars
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3 stars
791 (25%)
2 stars
139 (4%)
1 star
51 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 125 reviews
Profile Image for Katie.
22 reviews2 followers
November 21, 2011
This book was such a disappointment. I really couldn't tell who we were supposed to be rooting for; the characters were all equally deplorable. *spoilers*. I find it hard to empathize with a main character who is so busy having an affair in Georgia that her twelve year old daughter (living with her irresponsible father in California) rarely crosses her mind. In fact, she only speaks to her once during her entire summer in Georgia. And I guess we are supposed to feel sorrow when the crotchety old bigot of a father dies?? The same one who has never met his previously mentioned 12 year old granddaughter because she is half Jewish? Apparently he is completely redeemed by leaving a few thousand dollars to a black boy who has been his indentured servant all his life and remembering his children in his will. I usually enjoy her over-dramatization of the South and the Low Country because she describes it in awe and reverence, but this book had too many badly behaving, spoiled brat characters for me to root for any of them. I will treat this as a one-time disappointment because Ms. Siddons is usually one of my guilty pleasures.
Profile Image for Michael Romeo Talks Books.
211 reviews15 followers
October 15, 2014
56% of the way through Anne Rivers Siddons’ Homeplace I realized that I really don’t care what happens to any of these characters anymore. I found I was not convinced of their motivations for doing what they did, I was not in sympathy with their flaws and foibles, and I just plain didn’t like any of them. I wasn't even given those characters you love to hate, I just didn’t give a flip about these people and whether they lived or died.
The book started out well. In fact it was very similar in style and plot to another Siddons book I thoroughly enjoyed, Heartbreak Hotel. The two heroines were very similar. Their involvement in the exploding Civil Rights Movement in the South were identical to each other. I found myself looking forward to another Heartbreak Hotel. Then the story veered. The heroine’s appeal rapidly diminished. Her return home made little sense and her decision to stay home made even less. To add salt into an already bland wound the supporting cast is annoying at the best of times; the characters coming across as either cloying, cardboard, or corrosive.
Profile Image for Nan.
1 review
July 17, 2013
I'm a bit over half way through this book. I've now read a number of her books and I see some repetition in characters (their traits and descriptions) and themes.

I had decided to read some mid-level novels, set in fairly contemporary period, as a switch from my usual fare of mysteries and classics (with the occasional non-fiction title). I wanted narrative drive, good story telling, and emotionally gripping. Russo, Conroy and Siddons are the authors I've read so far. As a Southerner, I do enjoy the "southern novel" but I'd say that these authors are framed by their times in ways I wouldn't have expected--as they are about 10-15 years older than I, their experience of contemporary culture and America diverges quite a bit from mine--more than I would have anticipated. I would like to see conflict presented in a more nuanced fashion. Not everyone in the South is this dysfunctional; and the agent of change (or way of resolving conflict) need not be so melodramatic.

Isn't there someone writing of the South who captures the eccentricities without turning them to archetypes or melodrama?
Profile Image for P.C. Zick.
Author 51 books144 followers
April 25, 2014
Homeplace is set in the fictional town of Lytton, Georgia, and hits on some very controversial subjects for Siddons. She goes back to the Civil Rights era where the main character Mike meets the wrath of her father when she skips school to attend a rally in Atlanta. This turning point in the novel becomes the pivoting event. Mike leaves home and attempts to find her way on her own, and she’s a successful journalist. But, as all things that are swept under carpets, the dust eventually rises and must be banished.

Siddons still has the remarkable ability to use language in a way that loses me in the writing. I find myself settling in with the characters despite much of the predictability of the story. As Mike begins her first foray into the center of the Civil Rights Movment in Mississippi, Siddons describes the surroundings many of the white young college students encountered.

“What they did encounter was a wet, relentless, juggernaut heat, a vast and feral army of mosquitoes, and empty, sleepy, one-gas-pump towns where they alit stickily from the buses long after dark and trudge wearily into identical rural Negro shanties at the end of dirt roads in cotton fields and pasture, to sleep on pallets and quilts in the endless heat, wash at hand umps, use privies, and eat greens and grits and pork gravy for days on end.”

Whew—that’s all one sentence. Siddons' dramatic flair in her prose creates the sense of the long and oppressive sense of the experience by the use of a long and almost oppressive sentence. But once the reader allows the words to wash over and around, the experience of reading Siddons becomes a journey into the world of the South. Sometimes a harsh place to be; sometimes a fake place to be; but sometimes a heavenly place to be.

I enjoyed the story for Siddons' ability to create a sense of poetry in her fiction although I expect more from her in the plot she contrives in Homeplace. All the bad guys are easy to spot even when disguised with a fancy house. And all the confused folks are similar to other characters in her other novels. Perhaps this is the reason I took a hiatus from reading her books several years back.
Profile Image for Rachelle Ayala.
Author 247 books1,228 followers
June 30, 2013
Homeplace is my favorite ARS book so far. Unlike some of the other books that had strange endings, this one was reasonable and hopeful, not ridiculous, over the top, or reaching.

I also loved the start where Micah Winship "Mike" is shown as a lonely child who preferred the company of the servants than her own father. As the story unfolds, we find that Mike's father never accepted her because he blamed her for causing the death of his beloved wife in childbirth.

Mike is now an insecure and rather gullible woman. Her daughter resents her and her current lover tricks her and she's out of a job, wondering how she'd pay for her flat. A message comes from her sister asking her to spend the summer at home with her father who is dying of cancer.

What unfolds is an emotional journey where Mike tries desperately to numb her feelings inside a bell jar and absorb what has become of her home town, her shell of a father, and her aggressive and conniving sister and horrid brother-in-law.

Then there's the old flame, Bay, who had become a prominent politician with a drunk ex-cheerleader wife. While Micah suspects her father's new lawyer, Sam, of undue influence and shenanigans, she is instead doublecrossed by the one she unhesitately trusts.

While I foresaw some of the betrayals, it was still enjoyable to watch them unfold in slow motion. Anne Rivers Siddons does a masterful job of layering description with actions and reactions around the twists and turns, while whetting the reader's appetite with a hint of romance.

At the end, it was better not to be, as Mike had a lot of growing and recovery. But the book ends on a positive note, the villains are foiled, and Mike has the possibility of a better life as a complete woman, not the girl-child hidden under a veneer of numbness.
941 reviews6 followers
August 4, 2012
One of Siddon's earlier books. Could have been much better if not for the ROMANCE NOVEL screaming out at us - ohmygoodness, it is so gross - and her distaste for the slightest amount of extra fat on anyone. I'm wondering if the author is or was anorexic? Her descriptions of the fat lady are horrid and mean, and even worse, most old people are "turkey necks," have "carved blue hair," and the like. Church is musty, old, and mostly irrelevant, unless one needs it for a funeral, of course. Then the old people and church people are suddenly acceptable.

(Spoiler here . . . )
While our heroine is criticizing her family, wallowing in self-absorption, having an affair with her married ex-boyfriend, and generally acting like a spoiled child, her pre-teen daughter is with her permissive father, seeking to snag a bit part in a porn movie. But first things first - daughter's issues must wait.

Siddons ties it all up in the end, but this is not something she should be proud of. It could have been good.
16 reviews1 follower
March 12, 2014
the story overall wasenjoyable and kept my interest and most if tge characters were well developed, except the important ones such as the father whom this all revolved around. i figured out the ending about half way through, in other words the plot took predictable turns . (SPOILER ALERT) I could not relate the self absorbed main character. Having cared for sick loved ones before I can say I don't beieve anyone could be so heartless and wreckless as to not hear their loved one screaming in pain or taking risks because they are so busy screwing their married ex-boyfriend. And she rarely thought about her 12 year old daughter, who was across the country, staying with a dad who was letting her do horrendous things . Really? Am i supposed to care about this selfish B of a main character?
Profile Image for Kathy.
318 reviews
October 5, 2014
A decent read, but not one of my favorites by this author.

It picked up at the end, but Mike was just so unlikeable throughout most of the book, it was hard to sympathize. And I thought the apparent distaste for overweight people was a bit unnecessary.

A bit disappointed in this one, but ARS is one of my favorites, so I'll chalk it up as an anomaly.
Profile Image for Linnja (Lynn).
395 reviews15 followers
February 12, 2010
I started to read Anne Rivers Siddons books in the order they were written....this is the 4th. The same "characters" have shown up in these first 4 books. I enjoyed this book..but found myself looking for the familiar themes and characters.
18 reviews
October 8, 2017
I have read most of ARS's books, and usually enjoyed them. Homeplace was not one of my favorites. I didn't like most of the characters, and found them to be mean spirited. I don't stop reading a book once I have started it, but I was glad when this one was over!


38 reviews2 followers
July 23, 2009
Pretty typical Anne Rivers Siddons - but I always find her a good escape and an enjoyable read.
Profile Image for Susan.
Author 4 books2 followers
August 20, 2009
I always like Siddons, some more than others, but I like the way she develops her characters, and her psychological insights into what molds and drives them.
Profile Image for Jana.
46 reviews
August 17, 2016
One of the most boring books I've read in a long time. I made it to page 80 and cut my losses. This was the first book I've read by this author and probably won't start any others by her.
Profile Image for Mary.
114 reviews
November 12, 2014
I thought this was something different than it was. I was disappointed. I thought the main charracter was very mean and small minded.
123 reviews1 follower
February 7, 2024
Anne Rivers Siddons' novel Colony is in my list of top ten favorite novels, and Homeplace is now might be on my list of ten LEAST favorite novels. Now, Colony was written 15 years after Homeplace, so maybe Siddons learned a few things in 15 years, but this book absolutely disgusted me with all the stereotyping. In short, a girl raised in the racist South of the 1950's and 50's gets unlighted, writes a scathing essay on the evils of racism for the Georgia Civil Liberties Unions and goes on to become a writer in New York City, and then returns to find her sister and high school boyfriend to be even nastier than she thought.

Now, I could have accepted all that if she had not taken such a patronizing attitude toward Blacks, which -- imo -- is almost unforgivable given the fact that this book was written in 1987. She was ahead of her time in adopting the attitude of many extreme liberals today. However, what makes her patronizing attitude so blatant is that one of the characters in her book, her childhood Black friend, J.W., was portrayed as some kind of clone of the Pork character in Gone With the Wind, which seemed unbelievable for someone who graduated from the same high school as the main character did. Now maybe this was how some parts of Georgia were in 1987-- but I found that to be completely unbelievable. And the stereotypes didn't stop there. Siddons was absolutely nasty to the sister character and was absolutely nasty in describing her obesity.

Just a horrible, HORRIBLE book, in my opinion.
Profile Image for Mary E Trimble.
450 reviews7 followers
August 27, 2025
Homeplace, a contemporary novel by Anne Rivers Siddons, takes place in the fictional town of Lytton, Georgia.

Micah (Mike) Winship, a well-known journalist, lives in New York. She is recently divorced and has a teenage daughter who has chosen to spend the summer with her father. In Georgia, Mike’s father is dying and has sent for her. Mike’s ready for a change—she is nearing forty and she’s at odds with what to do with the rest of her life.

Mike and her father have never been close. Her mother died giving birth to her, and she’s always felt her father blamed her for his loss. Not only that, but he was expecting a son, thus the masculine name Micah/Mike. Mike has always felt she took second-place to beautiful, bubbly, popular Dee Dee, her older sister.

Mike hasn’t been back to Georgia since 1963, when her father threw her out twenty-two years ago after she marched in the Civil Rights Movement. Her father is a racist, and even though he was kind to his Black housekeeper and her son, he considered them inferior. But now he’s dying, and not only that, his homeplace, the place where he grew up, is threatened to be taken over by the Department of Transportation.

The author paints a vivid picture of the old South and its worn veneer of graciousness. She describes the people and their way of clinging to old, familiar habits. Homeplace stresses the importance of family and forgiveness, and the need for a place to call home.
Profile Image for LisaMarie.
750 reviews3 followers
June 10, 2021
3.5. Early on I was about ready to declare this my least favorite so far as I make my way down the list of ARS's, but then I started empathizing more and more with MC Mike tho at first I didn't care for her, and despising the other characters more and more (all except JW), especially Priss and Sam, who do more unsolicited, subjective Whut-tellin' than in all 13 seasons of King of the Hill. I mean Mike is a grown woman who has to make some kind of peace with her bigoted, disowning shitheel of a father, but why is there always in real life and in fiction some complete asshole thru and thru, about whom people always say, "That's just how she is!" or "You know he'll never change." and the far from perfect but basically decent lifelong recipient of all the asshole's crap is the one expected to adjust their attitude and swallow all the bitter pills?!
And just because Bay is going to turn out to be an unacceptable creep (something you can discern as soon as they get together, but I thought it was going to be because he was an abusive husband, but I guess his wife must've really gotten those bruises by bumping into stuff while loaded) does Mike really have to end up with that schmoey Sam??
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for L8blmr.
1,236 reviews13 followers
November 10, 2019
I don't have a whole lot of love for this book, but neither do I have a lot of hate (except for the repeated use of the "n" word) so reading this was one of those middle-of-the-road experiences for me. I began to feel that Ms. Siddons is attempting to be the female equivalent of Pat Conroy (admittedly one of my favorite writers), but she falls short of that mark. Too many of the characters in this book were more like caricatures than real people, and although some inspired pity, I felt like most of them were in a depressing predicament because of questionable if not out-and-out bad choices. I do think the author uses figurative language well and I was caught up in certain turns of phrases that evoked all the right feelings. If you're looking for an uplifting, feel-good story, you probably won't like this book.
324 reviews
March 18, 2024
Anne Rivers Siddons is a favorite Southern writer that writes the sort of melodramatic family saga/dramas that I love. The small country town in this story, Lytton, Georgia, could easily be the small country town my father was from in Georgia, where I spent one week every summer of my childhood. So in this story I could understand completely Mike's surprise when she returns after 25 years away (banished, more or less) to find the small country town now a suburb of a larger place, the small local community is now lost within the influx of cosmopolitan transplants, and what has always been beloved multi generational owned homeland is now speculated real estate by ominous outside factions.
It's a classic story of childhood neglect and denial, escape, betrayal, retribution, forgiveness and closure.
546 reviews2 followers
October 8, 2017
Initially this book reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird, but then the plot goes on. Mike has returned home and taken up with her former lover from many years ago, Bayard Sewell. That can't last and they both know it. She is frustrated that her older sister, Dee Dee, who half raised her, is so pricklish with her. And then there is Sam, who is her Father's lawyer and part-time care giver.
I was disappointed that Mike doesn't considered going to California and getting her twelve year old daughter from her ex-husband who is allowing her to be in a soft porn movie. That was beyond all bounds for me. Mike had seemed to have been so strong. But maybe that was just the point.
473 reviews
December 30, 2021
Set in the 1960's in the South so the dialogue between characters include language that was considered acceptable in the South. The story is about two daughters and their father. DeeDee is the apple of her father's eye and Micah is a disappointment to her father. Micah (Mike) believes the South needs to change and joins the Yankees in a protest which gets her arrested. Her father not only doesn't bail her out of jail but when Mike does return; he throws her out of the house. From there the story follows Mike's life until Mike is called home to help take care of her ill father. I found this book hard to read because of the dialogue and of the decisions made by the characters.
Profile Image for Beverly Hollandbeck.
Author 4 books6 followers
September 2, 2025
I used to read a lot of Siddons when I was on a southern and Appalachian author binge. She was one of my favorites. All of her books have a twist at the end, and I quit reading her when the twist was that a man looked at his newborn and knew that it was not his child. And he knew who the father was but had no thought that the biological father was Winston Churchill, which is who most newborns look like. Since I knew a twist was coming in this book, I was able to figure it out before it happened. But it was still a book that took me just two days to read, so apparently knowing the twist did not spoil my enjoyment of the story.
327 reviews2 followers
August 22, 2025
Amazingly good - nothing new for this author!

Being from the South, I always appreciate and enjoy books by this author. She has a clear understanding of the southern cu!ture and writes about it with no apology and a clear voice. Two sisters - one makes a name for herself writing, the other stays c!ose to their family home knowing that one day it will be hers. Their father's health fails and the younger sister comes home to help. As their father's health speeds towards death, shocking truths began to emerge, everyone's world gets turned upside down.
256 reviews
April 22, 2018
Ugh....I wanted to like this book but I really couldn’t. Each of the characters were so easy to dislike! Several times I asked myself why I kept reading, but I kept holding out hope that the story would turn around, but it never did. One thing that bothered me throughout was Mike’s indifference to what was happening with her daughter. The last page Mike finally talked like a parent, but I just can’t rally around someone who goes months without speaking to their teenage daughter.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
126 reviews
Read
May 27, 2025
This was a fantastic book. Set in South GA during the Civil Rights movement, the main character finds herself leaving home as soon as possible to join the movement. From there she moves to NYC and becomes a well known journalist.
Things happen tho. And much to her dismay, she is called home. A place she escaped from 20 years earlier and one she hoped never to see again.
It was said, You can't go home again. Can you? Read it to find out!
I give it an absolute 10!!!
Profile Image for pianogal.
3,243 reviews52 followers
June 2, 2020
I liked this one more than the last two of hers I've read. The last three have been about families and being home, but this one was way less creepy than the last two - which I appreciated. This has probably been my favorite of hers so far. (I'm trying to read all of them since we just lost her last fall). I saw the twists coming, but it was still enjoyable.
205 reviews
March 3, 2021
I think I've every one of Anne Rivers Siddon's novels. I love her lyrical prose and her depth of each character. Homeplace is no different. It has been several years since I've delved into her work so this story was timed correctly. If you want to read just a great story, read any one of her books. You won't regret it and you will be caught up with story.
79 reviews2 followers
November 4, 2021
YOU-can go home again !

I don’t know how I missed this book when it came out but I’m glad I did or I wouldn’t have had the chance to read and enjoy her books currently. The author always has a unique way of presenting family dynamics. I’m always able to recognize her characters in my home town. Reminds me of growing up in a small town
Profile Image for Judy.
3,380 reviews31 followers
August 30, 2025
Family Dynamics in the South

This was a bit tough to read given the family history of the main character, but it was well written. Ultimately it turned out as well as could be expected given the family conflict involved. There were lots of interesting characters including some really nasty ones, but there were also some who turned out to be someone you'd like to know.
Profile Image for Rowlie.
327 reviews2 followers
May 6, 2020
This was an interesting story and how people of black background were still being treated differently in society. Micah comes home to look after her dying father and slowly wins back his affection before he dies.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 125 reviews

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