But Where's Home?: A Novella and Stories

by Toni Ann Johnson

232 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication February 10, 2026

About the author

Toni Ann Johnson won the 2021 Flannery O'Connor Award for her linked short story collection LIGHT SKIN GONE TO WASTE, forthcoming from UGA Press in the fall of 2022.

A novella, HOMEGOING, won Accents Publishing's inaugural novella contest in 2020 and was released in May of 2021.

Short fiction and essays have been published in The Emerson Review, Hunger Mountain, Callaloo, The Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere.
Online, her short fiction appears at Serving House Journal ("Home"), Red Fez ("Time Travel"), Vida Review ("The Megnas"), Coachella Review (Daughtered Out), and Aunt Chloe's Journal (This Side and That).

A novel, Remedy For a Broken Angel, was published in 2014 and received a nomination for a 2015 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work by a Debut Author.
Johnson is a screenwriter with a number of produced projects to her credit including, "Ruby Bridges" (ABC), "Crown Heights (Showtime), The Courage to Love (Lifetime) the TV pilot "Save The Last Dance" (Fox Television) and the feature film, "Step Up 2: The Streets" (Summit Entertainment. She won the 1998 Humanitas Prize and the 1998 Christopher Award for Ruby Bridges. In 2004 she won a second Humanitas Prize for Crown Heights. She is also the recipient of a fellowship to the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab.

Johnson has received support for her writing from Callaloo (Fellow 2016) The Prague Summer Program for Writers (Vaclav Havel scholarship, 2016) , One Story Summer Conference and The Hurston Wright Foundation.

Reviews

[lami ☆ [eyes on palestine] · Rating 5 out of 5]

⋆ ׁ── five stars🪴
It's so exhilarating, starting a reading year with five stars. There's so much I want to say about each of the short stories, because I could write a full-length review on every single one of them. There wasn't a single one I didn't like. And the truth is, when an author can elicit anger, disgust, frustration, and sympathy from you in 200 pages, you just have to be astounded.

But Where's Home? is such a beautiful collection of intertwined short stories that revolves around an upper-middle-class Black family — the Arlingtons — in a predominantly white, working-class community and spans decades from the 1960s to 2022. We get to see the perspective of so many characters, though Livia, Maddie, Velma and Phil are the main narrators for most of the stories (Livia having the least, and I wish I'd heard more from her). They face a lot of rejection, neglect, and racism on top of so many other issues. It's Livia I felt the most for, if we don't count the burning hatred I had for Phil. The collection also touches on the cycle of emotional and physical abuse and breaking free. I also love the full circle moment of the story starting and ending from a perspective on the other side, one in entering into the world, and the other exiting.

The writing is so disgustingly good, I literally would wake up anticipating starting a new chapter. I was boiling with rage whenever Phil was the narrator, because he's a narcissist, delusional, no good fool and worst of all, a terrible father, who treats his daughters like he treats his affairs. I always felt so conflicted when it came to Velma, though. Most times, I'd be so embarrassed and irritated by her, but other times, I'd see how afraid she was. She was an excellent abuser, and I wish her the worst.

Some of my favourite stories were: Getting There, Home, Neighbours, To the Moon and But Where's Home, and I know that's basically the entire book, but if you'd read it, you'd understand why.

As Grandma Emily says at the end ' Before I lose my memory, I will have learned that in mothering there is no making up for the love you don't give. What you do or don't do with your offspring — the good and bad — makes the mold that shapes them.'. I believe that both Livia and Maddie will make a better mould for the ones that come after them.

I want to express a very heartfelt appreciation to NetGalley, University Press of Kentucky, Screen Door Press, and Toni Ann Johnson for sending me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

[Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written heartbreaking book that talks about the sins of the past and how they affect the present. Reckoning with absent parents and how that plays out in one’s life. I love the format of how it’s written over time but it also jumps back and forth through time. You would think that would take you out the story but the pacing is so good that you’ll be locked in. I can’t wait to read more from this author.

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley, University Press of Kentucky, and Screen Door Press for an ARC

I recommend researching trigger warnings prior to reading. This was a powerful collection of short stories within a novella. Johnson beautifully developed characters as you follow along their journeys across time and points of view. Addressed heavy topics of racism, classism, childhood trauma, etc. impact people for life. Each scene was visceral and powerful. I look forward to reading other works by Johnson.

[Alec Blythe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Estamos a principios de año, pero este libro sin duda va a ser una de mis mejores lecturas este año. Hacía mucho que no leía un libro con unos personajes tan grises y tan complejos pero con cada una de sus acciones justificadas. Por si fuera poco, he sentido un abanico de emociones tan amplio —ternura, frustración, melancolía, odio fundamentado…— durante la lectura que me cuesta creer que hayan sucedido tantas cosas en el lapso de apenas 200 páginas.

En esta novella y colección de relatos, seguimos la vida de una familia a lo largo de los años a través de varios personajes. Si bien el libro no sigue una estructura lineal —hay continuos saltos en el tiempo— y narran un número considerable de personajes, en ningún momento te llegas a perder porque cada uno de ellos está tan bien construido que sus intervenciones son indudablemente suyas y te podrías dar cuenta de quien habla con rapidez incluso si al principio de cada capítulo o historia corta no se mencionara el nombre del personaje que narra o, como en el caso de Velma, se siguiera su vida en tercera persona.

Esto me lleva al punto que ya he mencionado: todos, TODOS los personajes cometen en mayor o medida acciones cuestionables y, sin embargo, logras empatizar también en mayor o medida entre ellos. Quizá esto se daba a que ninguno de ellos es una mala persona per se, pero sí que han recibido muchos palos por parte de la vida.

La familia es negra, y esto juega un papel central en la obra, pues está ambientada en la Nueva York de las décadas de los 60, 70 y 80 sobre todo. El libro comienza con ellos mudándose a una barriada habitada únicamente por personas blancas, y ni siquiera sus trabajos —considerados «socialmente aceptables» porque implicaban un título universitario— los libraron de ser víctimas de numerosos estereotipos e insultos racistas.

Encontrar tu lugar partiendo de una estructura familiar casi en ruinas puede ser complicado, y este libro lo demuestra. Una lectura entrañable y desgarradora a partes iguales a la que muy probablemente acabaré volviendo con el paso del tiempo.

Muchas gracias a Netgalley y la editorial por confiarme una copia avanzada del libro. Gracias a ambas, he podido descubrir esta lectura que sin duda os recomiendo.

[Talya Jankovits · Rating 5 out of 5]

But Where’s Home? is the compelling expansion of the Anderson family whom Toni Ann Johnson first introduced in her short story collection, Light Skin Gone to Waste. These character’s, specifically Maddie, Livia, Velma and Philip, return with a vengeance of self, exploring the complexities of their tumultuous relationships, racism and bigotry and inner demons. Told across generations, weaving back and forth through time and through varying lenses of a family tree, Johnson seamlessly moves from character to character, wholly inhabiting different perspectives and voice providing insight into each character’s growth and demise.

The carefully calculated pacing of this story maximizes the effect of the progression and regression of each character. At times, Johnson is playful with perspective, adding layered nuances to scenes and added complexities to the characters. At no time does Johnson hold back. These characters are delivered with unfiltered and often brutal honesty of what it means to be a flawed human facing difficult circumstances and difficult truths. Every character is a protagonist. Every character is the hero and the anti-hero. And every character will linger long after you finish the last page. Johnson is a master of her craft and once again delivers a must-read collection of stories.

[Eki · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the 1960s to 2022 we get to follow a black family and their struggles in white neighborhoods, absent, sometimes abusive parents, infidelity and so much more. The eldest daughter who never got the love she longed for from her father, the second daughter who has had a traumatic childhood, a misogynist for a father and an abusive mother/step mother.


What I liked
‣ the ending
‣ the book definitely delivered all that it promised


What I disliked
‣ the middle felt kind of long


Review

Thank you Netgalley for the copy.
The beginning was kind of confusing at first, but once you get past that it starts making more sense. The ending was absolutely beautiful, I loved how it was written. I also liked how each character in their head was in the right and how they justified their actions when in reality no one was in the right most of the time. The characters felt real and overall I think the book was very well written.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Johnson shows us that some parts of the cycles of trauma are seeped in grief and heartbreak, in jealousy and the tender ache for care. I cried reading this book—understanding Livia’s sense of burden between her parents, knowing Maddie’s torn sensation between being trapped and fleeing, being frustrated at Phil’s arrogance, wanting to shake Velma out of her rage.

Johnson writes, “there is no making up the love you don’t give.” And the complex relationships between this family and the circle around them makes that message so clear. What is unhealed continues, what the healing asks is sometimes too hard. We make a way, the best ways we can, and it’s lucky when we decide to take care of each other.

[Livia Musolino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to the author and the publisher to giving me the opportunity to read this book through NetGalley

In this book we follow the Arrington family through decades of fights, guilt feelings and resentements... A disfunctional poc family that lives in a preponderantly white town near NY

With time jumps and the use of multiple point of views we see how racism, classism and childhood trauma can forge the identity of people and have effects in adulthood

I recommend this book but take care if you have some triggers

Triggers:

Racism
Violence
Emotional and physical abuse
SA of child

[Avery Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

But Where’s Home? by Toni Ann Johnson is a powerful, layered collection that captures both the quiet and overt ways racism, classism, and family dynamics shape a life. Through the lens of the Arrington family navigating an all-white neighborhood in 1960s Monroe, New York, and spanning decades beyond Johnson offers a deeply human portrait of resilience, longing, and identity.