A Home at the End of the World
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A Home at the End of the World is a 1990 novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Michael Cunningham.
The book is narrated in the first person, with the narrator changing in each chapter. Bobby and Jonathan are the main narrators, but several chapters are narrated by Alice, Jonathan's mother, and Clare. An excerpt from A Home at the End of the World was published in The New Yorker, chosen for Best American Short Stories 1989, and featured on NPR's Selected Shorts.
Plot summary
Bobby had grown up in a home in suburban Cleveland, Ohio during the 1960s and 1970s where partying and drugs were a recurring theme. He had already witnessed his beloved older brother's death in a home accident and his mother's death by the time he befriends Jonathan, who comes from a sheltered, but loving family. After Bobby finds his father dead, Jonathan's family takes him in.
Bobby and Jonathan become best friends. Closer than brothers, they also experiment sexually. The two eventually lose touch, but meet up again in their twenties in 1980s New York, where Bobby moves in with Jonathan and his eccentric roommate Clare. Clare had planned to have a baby with Jonathan (now openly gay), but Bobby and Clare become lovers, while Jonathan still has feelings for Bobby. Clare and Bobby have a baby and move to a country home together with Jonathan.
The trio form their own unusual family, questioning traditional definitions of family and love, while dealing with the complications of their love triangle.
Film adaptation
Cunningham adapted his novel for a 2004 film with the same title.
