No Direction Home

by Marisa Silver

A tensely emotional debut novel of abandonment, loss, and the unexpected shapes families take to survive. "Silver is masterful at orchestrating her complicated cast of characters and settings….Moving and resonant."― Los Angeles Times Book Review "Blindness will be like this." So says ten-year-old Will Burton, trying to reimagine his life in the wake of his father's abrupt disappearance, as his family picks up stakes and moves to California. Another boy, Rogelio Augilar, risks his life to cross the border illegally from Mexico to reach his father, enduring gangs, police roundups, and the pitiless desert. And Marlene McClure, a hard-edged, feisty teenager, leaves her own Midwestern home in search of a father she has imagined but never known. The lives of each of these families converge on a single home in Los Angeles―where the very needs and desires that have torn them apart allow them a measure of hope together. Written with heart-stopping grace and a powerful understanding of the needs and desires that define family, No Direction Home masterfully evokes how far we will go in the name of a place to call home. Reading group guide included.

Genres: Fiction

306 pages, Paperback

First published July 27, 2005

About the author

Marisa Silver is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel, Mary Coin (published by Blue Rider Press, March 7th, 2013).

Marisa Silver directed her first film, Old Enough, while she studied at Harvard University. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1984, when Silver was 23. Silver went on to direct three more feature films, Permanent Record (1988), with Keanu Reeves, Vital Signs (1990) and He Said, She Said (1991), with Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Perkins. The latter was co-directed with her husband-to-be, Ken Kwapis.

After making her career in Hollywood, she switched her profession and entered graduate school to become a short story writer. Her first short story appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 2000 and subsequently several more stories have been published there.

Silver also published the short-story collection, Babe in Paradise, in 2001. That collection was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. A story from the collection was included in The Best American Short Stories 2000. In 2005, she published No Direction Home and in 2008, The God of War was published to great acclaim.

Reviews

[Sierra Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

No Direction Home by Marisa Silver is a realistic fiction. Something I really liked about the way this author wrote was the was she would have one chapter be in the perspective of one character and the next another character. Something that drew me to the character of Amador because he is very kind hearted and sweet for someone who is in the situation that he is in. One thing that really infuriated me was when Frank left his family and Will and Ethan thought it was because of them that he had left. In the beginning of the book it introduces you to Caroline, Frank, and their twin sons Ethan and Will. Frank leaves their family and Caroline takes her sons and goes to live with her father and mother. Her mother Eleanor has alzheimer's. Her father works as an actor to keep the bills payed. While Caroline's father works a man named Amador takes care of Eleanor, for she can't be left alone with the state that she's in. Caroline refuses to accept her mothers condition and tries many times to get her to be lucid. Amador has family back in Mexico where he's from, and his son Rogelio takes a long, hard trip across the border to get to his father. This book is written in present time, in perspective of many of the characters in the book. This book is worth reading because it gives a good understanding of many things like what its like to take care of someone with alzheimer's and what its like to be an immigrant with family in another country.

[Andrea MacPherson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm reading through all of Marisa Silver's backlist after loving Mary Coin, and I'm not disappointed by this novel.

While it was her first novel, it feels polished and assured; Silver utilizes multiple voices--ten year old Will who is growing blind, his mother Caroline, teenager Marlene who searches for her father, Amador who comes to America in search of a better life, and Rogelio, the son Amador left behind. The novel explores the ideas of belonging, abandonment, absence, loss, and journey in a fresh way, tracing all the characters' paths until they ultimate collide.

Silver's touch is light, leaving much open to interpretation. The writing is spare but never feels distanced from the reader. In an interview, she talked about her writing as a collage, and this metaphor perfectly describes the layered feeling of No Direction Home.

[Shellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to love this book, because Marisa Silver is one of my idols, but the plot didn't hold together for me. She spends so much time setting up these wonderful, intricate characters, and then once she gets them all together, there's really no time left for interaction, and the book kind of fizzles out.

[Bea · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good author. Parts of this book were great, but overall it wasn't outstanding. I think there were too many characters or something, which made it kind of complicated. Any one of the three stories that were tied together could have been a book on its own, and this author is good enough to pull the simple stuff off.

[amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very melancholy book with a touch of hope to it. The prose flowed easily and there is nothing dry about the language. Character development is strong and/or the inner machinations--of those that are shared--are very vivid. Still, the fact that only half of them were shared felt as though only half the story was told. Left both something to the imagination and something to be desired.

[Lindy Loo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Silver doesn't seem to trust her reader to decipher the themes & messages of her book, having her characters literally tell them to us with grand sweeping gestures in case we missed them. I prefer a book that trusts its readers. I was also bothered by the narrative of 10-year old Will's story which seems way too adult to convincingly come from a child's mind.

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beautiful composition, but dull.

[laaaaames · Rating 3 out of 5]

Silver's prose, as always, is gorgeous. I'm not a huge fan of billions of POVs but I can't say she didn't navigate them all beautifully.

(read: 73)

[Ayelet Waldman]

I like this book, a sweet rambling story. I didn't, however, buy the love story for a minute.

[Tonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. The abundance of characters left me wanting more detail, but beautiful writing.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very compelling, believable characters.

[Ginger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. I am a Marisa Silver fan and this book didn't let me down!! Three different "life" stories that all intersect.

[Elyse Rudin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two families on opposite coasts, one with twin 10 year old boys ( in addition to their grandparents) and the other with a teenage daughter. Turns out, unbeknownst to either family, they share the same father. The girl decides to runaway to the west coast in the hopes of living with the family with the twin boys and grandparents . The grandmother has Alzheimers and is being taken care by an illegal Latino man whose family still lives in Mexico. The Latino man’s 14 year old son crosses illegally in the hopes of finding his father. Phew, so this is the case whereby the writing is beautiful but the story is slow and only picks up the last 30 pages and the book was under 300 pages. Would not recommend.