Home Bound: An Uprooted Daughter's Reflections on Belonging

by Vanessa A. Bee

A cross between Memorial Drive and Crying in H-Mart, Vanessa A. Bee defies memoir conventions in Home Bound, a multi-faceted, globe-spanning exploration of identity, family, belonging, and the meaning of home.

Born in Cameroon and adopted by her aunt and her aunt's white French husband, Vanessa A. Bee grew up in a village in France where her adoptive father worked in a Renault factory. After her parents divorced, Vanessa was uprooted time and again due to her adoptive mother's changing circumstances, experiencing housing insecurity both in France and the UK. As a teen she immigrates to Reno, Nevada, on the cusp of the housing crisis. Eventually, after graduating from Harvard Law School and navigating a career in economic justice, Vanessa makes a home for herself in Washington, DC.

Vanessa's adoptive, multiracial, multilingual, multinational, and transcontinental upbringing has made her grapple for years with foundational questions such as: What is home? Is it the country we're born in, the body we possess, or the name we were given and that identifies us? Is it the house we remember most fondly, the social status assigned to us, or the ideology we forge? What defines us and makes us uniquely who we are?

Organized around her own dictionary-style definitions of the word "home," Vanessa tackles these timeless questions thematically and unpacks the many layers that contribute to and condition our understanding of ourselves and of our place in the world.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir

256 pages, Hardcover

First published October 11, 2022

Reviews

[Susan's Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this memoir in exchange for an honest review.

Let me start off by confessing that I am not a huge fan of memoirs, but the advance reviews were very appreciative and supportive so I decided to check it out for myself!



The writing style often had me back-tracking to reread a line here and there: the author sometimes packs a lot into a sentence. But apart from this, you are taken on an incredible journey.



Identity - and the definition of "home" - is a main theme running throughout this memoir. This is someone who has been uprooted so many times in her life, having to start over and over again, having to redefine herself and decide, ultimately, who she actually IS - despite the variety of cultural influences and social expectations that she was exposed to at each stage of her life.

It took me a while to get through this one, but, I am glad I stuck with it. Four out of five stars for this well-done memoir.

[Elizabeth Cruikshank · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will preface this by saying I am having the hardest time writing this review because I loved this book so much. Here goes:

In her experimental memoir HOME BOUND, Vanessa A. Bee traces her complex trajectory across oceans, borders, identities, faith, and ideology through a series of essays centered on different definitions of the word “home.” After being adopted from Cameroon by her biological aunt and her French husband, Vanessa was raised in often-precarious housing in France, London, and Reno, before moving to Cambridge to attend Harvard Law and finally making her way to DC.

Despite its interrogation of the American Dream, however, this isn’t an individualistic narrative about triumph over the odds. Instead, Vanessa writes poignantly about the family and communities that nurtured and shaped her, the faith that sustained her (until it didn’t), and the government support that allowed her to flourish. In essays that are simultaneously sprawling and deeply intimate, she explores what it means to find a home in one’s skin, body, name, family, soil, neighborhood, religion, and country.

This book is gorgeous. Vanessa writes with such attention to craft, and her sentences flow like the best novels. But rather than merely deploy her gift for language to tell her own life story (fascinating as it is), Vanessa uses her experiences to illuminate broader themes—all without ever feeling like she is writing a “message book.” It is nuanced and wise, and I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from Vanessa’s many insights in this spectacular debut.

Suggested pairings: A few of my other favorite unconventional memoirs: Minor Feelings, The Collected Schizophrenias, and The Magical Language of Others. In fiction, Ghost Forest and The Margot Affair, for complicated relationships with distant father figures.

[Letitia | Bookshelfbyla · Rating 5 out of 5]

HOMEBOUND is Vanessa A. Bee’s memoir about her journey finding her identity and home as a Cameroonian adopted by her aunt and her white French husband living in Europe and eventually the United States.

She reflects on her path to belonging, navigating complicated familial relationships, her religion, her divorce, and defining how she comes to build meaningful life and home.

“Certain people and lands held such power over us that being back in their midst rewired us, transformed our voices, uncovered hidden faces, and to know someone, really know them, demanded that context.”

I loved being transported to different countries, languages, ways of life and belief systems.

For the depth and range of takeaways her story covered, it could easily have felt rushed or oversimplified but it was far from it.

Some parts I connected with the most was her examination of the importance of representation of black beauty in the media — seeing blackness elevated and appreciated is extremely meaningful and important.

The consequences of compliance and complicity in our society, especially when protecting women [black women] was moving. We have unfortunately created a culture of nonintervention -- where we commonly turn a blind eye to injustice because we value our comfort over helping others.

Her relationship with her biological father and adopted father was interwoven throughout the book and was emotional but also eye-opening in how to accept people’s limitations for your own peace.

5/5. Theres so much more I could say. Easily my favorite memoir of the year. I couldn’t recommend this enough.

Vanessa, thank you for your vulnerability, honesty and thoughtfulness and @astrahousebooks for the gifted copy. 💛✨

[Samuel Weiss · Rating 5 out of 5]

This debut book is the story of a woman's journey from Cameroon to working class, rural France to London to Reno, Nevada to being the youngest student in her class at Harvard Law School. That said, it bucks any of the stereotypes you may have about what such a book consists of. It's one of the most beautiful books I've read in a long time.

The structure revolves around different concepts of the idea of "home," one that goes beyond differing physical locations to examining our relationships to our bodies, our ethnicities, our religions. Each section is its own in form in a way that is slightly experimental, but this seems to naturally fit the material. The prose is beautiful and the book touches on themes of class, race, gender, beauty, and motherhood but all with a deft touch, not heavy handedness.

Home Bound functions in the same way that the best novels do: it connects you, deeply, to someone you may have little in common with by showing you how the protagonist's unique experiences shine a light on the same predicaments that we all wrestle with. I can't wait to see what this author does next.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have long thought Bee is among the greatest essayists of her generation, and "Home Bound" confirms it. I spent much of the book wondering where it was all going – or if it was even going anywhere – then Bee knocked it out of the park with one of the best closing paragraphs I’ve read in years. It’s beautiful, tender, and contains many passages I’ll never forget. Also, fuck you Swifties.

[Chris Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compassionate, thoughtful, and fascinating memoir. Vanessa A. Bee’s rumination on home — how it defines, constricts, and shapes us — is something everyone can connect with on a fundamental level, even if her unique experiences are solely hers. I learned and felt a lot reading this, and I’m certain I’ll revisit it in the years ahead. Wonderful stuff.

[JoAnn · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a few days since I finished reading Home Bound and I'm still mulling it over in my head, turning the things Vanessa -- can I call her that? Is it too familiar? -- has told me. On the one hand, it feels like she and I have much in common: the Spice Girls and Hey, Arnold! are part of the memorabilia of my own 90s teenage years. Vanessa's memoir strikes a familiar note in many ways. Home Bound is a memoir of movement and migration, transcultural and transnational switching and code switching, and the conflict of culture between places and communities and within a place and a single community. I know that. I've experienced that before and now, still.

Home Bound traces Vanessa's life from her childhood through to the present, across time as well as space. Her life begins in Cameroon, a place she is ever drawn back to (is she as uprooted as the title suggests), but she grows up in France, in a number of places, in a number of homes and neighborhoods. Vanessa disabuses us of any romantic notions of France and how the French live. But then, she makes the point in her memoir that she is only partially French. Her memoir takes us to London where she was more French than English, a mix of Cameroonian and French depending on the location. Then to America, where she becomes domiciled in one of the most American of American states, Texas.

But, of course, Home Bound is more than just a travel log.

The book takes us into deep discussions about gender and what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a sexual being, a sexualized being or object, and how to object to that objectification. It explores mothering and growing up, coming-of-age and what that means when it is done across multiple cultures. The book is also about faith, the religious kind and the internal, subjective kind ("believing in yourself"). Vanessa boldly brings up being of mixed race heritage, discusses adoption and parentage. Lineage is a major thread that winds through the book, guides the reader. Ideas are intergenerational, travel through blood as well as through proximity, from a caregiver to their charge. Education is not merely academic, formal, institutionalized. Home Bound makes it clear that it is more complex than that, it is pervasive within and out of the classroom.

The classroom is a large part of Vanessa's memoir. I should say, education is a large part of her memoir. The classroom is the locale of her education, the formal kind and the ideological kind. It is here, in the discussion of education and upbringing that Vanessa's story departs from my own and I feel like I am watching a film of someone else. Someone who feels familiar but is not me.

There is familiarity in the the demise of her American dream. Its death is similar in some ways to what happened to my own. She says in one part how she had thought of herself in some ways as white, having been raised and lived among white people for so long. It's not an uncommon experience. Fanon was onto something universal when he warned us of masks and disguises that fool no one but ourselves. Vanessa and I both woke up. Then our American dream died, unable to sustain in the reality of 21st century capitalism and American privatization, without a trust fund to help keep it breathing. The classroom had a lot to do with the deaths of our dreams.

I realize now, as I write this, why I call her Vanessa. It seems like Bee isn't her name. Shouldn't it is be Billé? And why "A." and not "Assae"? I suspect this has something to do with the subtitle, Uprooted. For me, the subtitle, An Uprooted Daughter's Reflections on Belonging, strikes me differently, perhaps because of my academic background in history. The subtitle calls to mind Oscar Handlin's The Uprooted, that magnum opus of migration history that centered the migrant, their "peasant" origins, and their struggles to find their feet -- plant new roots -- in American soil. Did Vanessa mean to infer a kind of transition from peasantry into... educated bourgeoisie? I don't know. I don't think so. I can't see it. But uprooted means something. Perhaps it is the violence of being separated from one's comfortable ideas, coming to terms with the deflation of an illusion; in Vanessa's case, of her fathers, her faith, her marriage, her trust in men, her color and all that "color" means as it is used to define us in others' eyes and as we use it to define ourselves.

This is a complex memoir, as complicated as Vanessa's personal history. It sprawls, but its many parts and tangents cohere to a single theme: Home Bound is about figuring out who your people are and realizing that we will not find a perfect fit in any community. We will belong in some ways, be alienated in others. Some times it is a matter of chronology; we belonged in the past, we cannot belong in the present. Sometimes we belong with strangers, sometimes those closest to us are not those who should have our trust. If I sound bleak, I do not mean to; Home Bound makes it clear that the journey -- perhaps for all of us -- is complicated -- and sometimes it really helps to see how someone else navigated it.

Home Bound is a profound, nuanced memoir well-worth the reading.

[Rebekah · Rating 5 out of 5]

MEMOIRHome Bound: An Uprooted Daughter’s Reflections on Belongingby Vanessa A. BeeAstra House. Oct. 2022. 256p. ISBN 9781662601330. $28. MEMOIRCOPY ISBN Born in Cameroon, lawyer/essayist Bee (whose writing has been published in Politico and n+1) shares the story of her search for identity, home, and belonging. Adopted by her aunt and her aunt’s white French husband, Bee is raised in France until her adoptive parents’ divorce, which sends her and her mother to London and eventually to Reno, NV. She and her mother experienced housing insecurities throughout her childhood and young adult life, but this did not stop her from graduating from college in three years and attending Harvard Law School, which catapulted her to a career as a lawyer with an economic/financial justice–oriented practice in Washington, DC (including as counsel at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau). This memoir examines the multiple and expanding ways the author defines home—it’s organized around dictionary-style definitions—throughout her life, interrogating name, place, space, and ideologies. Bee’s lyrical, emotive prose takes readers through her life with an intimacy that draws and keeps them close.

VERDICT Bee’s memoir is experimental in form but will appeal to a variety of reader, challenging singular beliefs of what it means to be a daughter, sister, lover, wife, lawyer, and mother.

https://www.libraryjournal.com/review...

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vanessa A. Bee beautifully contends with the tensions in her identity in this memoir. Born in Cameroon, with childhoods spent in France, England, and the United States, Vanessa is someone who the question “where are you from” comes with complicated nuance. She writes with great empathy about her sometimes fraught and conflicting influences on her identity, the family disagreements that predate her existence or float on top of her. Her reflections on home, what it means for her practically and philosophically and what she thinks it might mean for others are thought provoking.

The scope of this memoir is vast - Vanessa also writes with great responsibility to educate her reader about not only the countries and cultures that are integral to her being, but also issues of racism and sexism as they play out in her life, and her own evolving relationship with religion. Indeed, the vastness of the memoir is the one place where I sometimes felt at sea, especially in her adult years as she glossed over some years and lingered on others. The overarching theme of Home was perhaps not quite connective enough. Overall I enjoyed this read immensely and felt a deep and sympathetic pull toward Vanessa. The ending of the memoir was so full of heart that I am sure I’ll be thinking about it for some time.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for the opportunity to read this e-ARC.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books (and certainly one of the best memoirs) I’ve read in the last few years. The book traces Vaness A. Bee’s adoption from Cameroon to France, childhood in France and England, adolescence in Nevada, and early career at Harvard law and in Washington DC. Throughout, she deftly explores themes of home, family, identity, and belonging. The author is an extraordinary storyteller and I couldn’t put it down. 10/5 stars!

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most unflinchingly honest memoirs I’ve read in a long time. What defines home for someone? Vanessa explores this through the story of her birth, adoption, life across multiple continents, early marriage, divorce, religion, law school, race, career in economic justice. Do we find our home in a place? In our name? In our partner? In our own body? I could not put this book down. At times it read like fiction and I was swept up in the imagery of Europe or Africa. Other times I was engrossed in details of HUD and the housing crisis. It’s brilliant. Read it.

[Jude · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh how I loved this book from the very beginning! The author describes how complicated and convoluted it would be to summarize her entire identity every time in answer to the question "where are you from?" and how instead she chooses relevant bits and pieces to cobble together answers that suit the situation and the person (usually a stranger) asking. "But don't we all do this? Don't you?" she asks, and I wanted to scream, "YES!!!" because I've also lived in different countries, have an unplaceable accent, and don't fit in to a neat box in terms of nationality or origin.

The author takes us on a long, intercontinental voyage to discover all of the places, events, and - most importantly - family members that contribute to her sense of "home". Let me warn you, this woman has more relatives than anyone I've ever met. Then again, I come from a very small family, though also intercontinental, so other readers may find it easier to relate to this aspect. In fact, as I read on I at times felt jealous of how rich her life is with cultures, connections, and an ever-increasing number of parents, aunts, and half-siblings - not to mention cousins. Amazingly, I never got lost or wondered who was who, because the author does a fantastic job of introducing each person in turn, clearly identifying time and place, and using context cues and names to make sure the reader knows who she's talking about. By the end of the book, the author is only barely into her 30s yet it feels like she has lived at least 3 lives - one in bucolic France, another in urban European poverty, a third in evangelical America...and there are many more you get to learn about.

At times I thought some events were described in too much detail, perhaps very important to the author but less so to the reader (for example I found it hard to care that she was very mad at Charlie, a half-sibling we meet only briefly); on the other hand, some big questions weren't answered in the end: How tied is she to each place, where is she drawn to now? Which traditions from each place she lived has she maintained? And most intriguingly for me, how has her (somewhat surprising) political stance evolved as she has settled into adulthood? Perhaps there will be a part 2 to this sophisticated memoir one day, and I will gladly read it.

[Talia G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Home Bound is a MUST READ! I’ve been preoccupied with the questions and themes posed around the ideas of home, family, and community since the minute I picked it up.

The beautiful prose paints imagery of the people and places that have shaped Vanessa, from Cameroon to the French countryside to DC, with a few additional stops in between. I’m left simultaneously feeling intimately intertwined in her family, and wanting to look up every person and place to know more about them.

The book is perfect in the way that it is both foreign and educational, yet highly relatable at its core. I learned something new with every storyline but felt connected to Vanessa throughout. Each essay will break and warm your heart at the same time. I can’t recommend it enough!

[Becca Dawley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a powerful combination of addressing identity, belonging, passing of time, current events, a sense of home - the list goes on and on. Vanessa Bee provides a great insight to her life which encourages readers to also think about what and who has made them who they are today. She is honest about her experiences with the definition of home being challenging, housing insecurity, complicated familial relations, and constant curiosity surrounding thinking about the what ifs and what could have beens. Even if readers don’t directly relate to her experiences, one learns a lot/ is encouraged to reflect on their own evolutions and can find that in many of life’s hardships- we are never alone

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

First chapter hooked me immediately, then I faced some difficulty getting into it before picking it up regularly. Overall I really enjoyed it - the author has a fascinating story of being both adopted and growing up in multiple countries, and she writes beautifully on a range of (often difficult) topics relating to this backstory. The theme of “home” is woven throughout, which obviously spoke to me:

“Growing up, I used to envy my classmates for having the option to explain where they were from in one breath, without caveats or asides. Home was in this or that city, this or that state, often under a single flag.”

4/5 because I did sometimes find the text a bit dense and the narrative difficult to follow at times, but it did not take away from the reading experience too much!

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful memoir. A journey of her finding “home”, belonging and being “othered”. Her style of writing is so poetic and you really get sucked into every place she lived (Cameroon, France, England and the US). I highly recommend it.

[Josh Oppenheimer · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible book! Vanessa’s thoughtful and brilliant attention to her world, family, countries, cities, and the institutions and strangers she encounters fill each page with revealing insights through beautifully crafted narrative. I cannot recommend this book highly enough!

[Ona · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written memoir full of honest, complicated family relationships. I loved the reflections on how our sense of “home” is always evolving. Highly recommend.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Bee explores the different definitions of home as she writes her memoir and you start thinking about the meaning of those definitions related to your own life as well.

[Matthew Sun · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thought I would enjoy this more than I did, considering how the themes covered in this book are ones I think about often. It was definitely a worthwhile read - the author is smart, introspective, honest, and interesting. But I didn't walk away from any of the essays in this collection with my mind blown, though I do respect and like the author greatly.

[Stephanie Sterling · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, maybe?

[Margie Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A child that is born in Cameroon, moves to France, then England, and ends up in the United States. Bee's keen observations of family and her environment probe what it is like to be an outsider while remaining true to herself. The aunt who raised her is an unsung hero. Incredible storytelling.

[Maddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating memoir and life—with much more life to still live. This book explores identity, religion, marriage and divorce, class and privilege, fair housing, adoption, and - ultimately - home. Vanessa A. Bee is a Cameroonian woman who grew up in France and England before coming to the US, and eventually attending Harvard Law School. While this is the trajectory she shares, it’s also a tale of lots of uncertainty and nothing felt “easy” for Vanessa. So grateful for the telling of stories like this.

[Amanda Korber · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read book. Vanessa's writing is beautiful and engaging. Her story is unique and compelling, and at the same time she talks about the concept of home in a way that makes you want to explore where home has been, and what home means, for you. She talks about the realities of her day-to-day life, and then seamlessly zooms out to situate herself and her family in the landscape of larger policy choices and decisions made by people in power. I really cannot recommend this book enough!

[Viral · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful, powerful, and unique memoir that reflects on Bee's complex journey of growth and development as she moves across the world and through various spaces that try to limit her sense of self. I read a lot of her work when she wrote for Current Affairs, and I'm glad to read this book in its entirety. A beautiful reflection on what home is. Highly recommend.

[tb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so glad I picked "Home Bound" as my first read of the year. I loved this memoir so much, and the author writes of home in multiple contexts: as a place for one to find belonging, as family, as a physical to live, as a place that can displace in order to make room for newcomers. It is beautiful and politically resonant.

[Joseph Niver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really loved this book! Generally not a huge fan of memoirs but Bee does an incredible job of relating her life story in a way that feels personal but not ego driven while also touching on the broader themes of what it means to be "home."

[Liana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A smart, bracing, tender, and loving book of essays about what it means to have a home, to be home, to go back home, to make a home. Read this.

[Lexi Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written memoir.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

More like 3.5. I found the beginning stronger than the end, and enjoyed the book but prefer her standalone essays more I think.