The Homecoming Man

by Hugh Cook

Book by Cook, Hugh

324 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Hugh Cook was born in The Hague and immigrated to Canada with his family when he was seven. He holds an M.F.A. in fiction writing from the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa and has published stories in a number of Canada’s leading literary journals.

His novel Home in Alfalfa won the City of Hamilton Book Awards for fiction and has been adapted for the stage. In 1997 The Word Guild of Canada awarded Cook the Leslie K. Tarr Award.

Cook is emeritus professor of English at Redeemer University College. He and his wife reside in Hamilton, Ontario.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Bloem, a 44-year-old scholar, separated from his wife for the past year, decides to accept an invitation from his 73-year-old father, Gerrit, to return to his childhood home in Ontario and stay for a while. This gives him the chance to reconnect with his aging father while also having access to the university library to assist his work in translating 17-century Dutch poetry. His father has lived alone for twenty years since his mother died suddenly in 1966 (it is now the mid-to-late 1980s), and upon exploring the house, Paul notes the changes that have been made. Most notably, and mysteriously, his dad has built a room in the cellar. The door is sealed with a padlock, and it is clear his father does not want to open it to him or even talk about it.

“In some ways, he suddenly realized, as if a light had gone on, in some ways that padlock was the exact image of his father. That was it. Not to be opened; no questions asked.” (p. 198)

The story switches between narrating Paul’s perspective with that of his father, and so the reader gets to see the private thoughts of father and son that are hidden from each other. This is a home engulfed in a dark secret which, through the narrative, gradually is revealed not only to us but also to the characters themselves. For example, the father is bothered by the cold of the air-conditioned grocery store he enters on a warm summer day and is surprised by his reaction. But then later his subconscious provides the reason with the emergence of a long-suppressed memory of the cold of a Nazi German prison cell in which he languished so many years before.

Paul becomes concerned, if not alarmed, by the increasingly bizarre behavior of his father, behavior which is tied to the remembrance of more long-suppressed memories. The description of these memories makes for hard reading, as we become witnesses of Nazi brutality towards Jews interred with Gerrit, and then towards Gerrit himself. He has not thought about these things for decades and reliving them brings the horror back to the surface. Suppressed even deeper than these memories are associated emotions of guilt and shame which too are forced back to the surface.

The tragedy of the story is that for forty years Gerrit has exerted such effort to forcibly submerge the memory of this time that he has not had the emotional energy to properly love and be tender to his own family. As Paul learns this, he realizes that “like father, like son” he too has carefully restrained his love towards his own family, resulting in a failed marriage.

And so locks are opened and secrets revealed.

Gerrit's worsening physical pain and inner turmoil having both reached an intolerable point, the story comes to its climax, and begins to close.

A new lady friend, Lena, and an injured fawn which he rescues after accidentally clipping it with his ride mower prove to be a balm to Paul’s newly convicted soul. After nurturing the fawn, now an amputee, back to health, and bringing it to a wildlife park for release, he second guesses himself and wonders if perhaps he should have let it go in the wild. Lena reminds him that it would have been easy prey for hunters, and Paul acquiesces, saying, “still, it would have been nice.” Lena responds,

“Yes, but when a creature’s been hurt, sometimes a limited freedom’s as much as it can handle.”

The reader realizes that Lena’s words have a poignant application not only to the fawn which, though brought back to health, would forever be maimed, but also to Gerrit and to Paul. Both have also suffered deep wounds that could never completely heal, Gerrit only finally finding peace after death, and Paul with the realization of his being very much his father's son and the damage that this had caused to his marriage and his family.

This is a sad story but infused with hope, due to the Dutch Calvinism which quietly and warmly permeates this otherwise tragic story.

[steffy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a couple of stages of like and dislike for me. I struggled to get into it, then once I was into the groove, I was genuinely interested. I wanted to know what would happen in the book, curious about the development of the relationships, the people, Gerrit's memories.

However, I was terribly disappointed with the ending. It all wrapped up too quickly. It was as if the author got tired of the story and just ... ended it. So disappointing.

[Mary Dayhoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some difficult to read portions. A little slow but I wanted to know the father's story.