**Spoiler Alert! This review contains spoilers** **Trigger Warning! The book reviewed is about suicide and death**
I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore is a novel of death and grief as told in parallel stories, connected by shared themes. The first story begins in the aftermath of the Civil War immediately following Lincoln’s assassination. Its parallel is set in the modern day. As the two stories intersect briefly in one state, probably Kentucky, the reader begins to see the overarching question of the book — What is home?
Two Stories, Two Time Periods, Three Storylines
It takes a bit of concentration on the reader’s part to follow the three distinct storylines featuring —
- Libby, a widow who runs a boardinghouse in the aftermath of the Civil War and details her day-to-day life in letters to her sister
- Finn in modern-day times who visits his older brother Max in hospice
- Lily, Finn’s suicidal on-and-off-again girlfriend whom Finn considers his true love
From the first page, the reader begins to learn about Libby through a letter to her sister. We immediately meet the unsettling male boarder who becomes a focal point in her story. Towards the end of the book Libby…
