The Road Home [Paperback]

The Road Homelies in the shadows of Manifest Destiny and Wounded Knee; it is etched into the landscape of an old man's memory and into the stubborn dreams of a young man's heart. In one of Jim Harrison’s greatest works, five members of the Northridge family narrate the tangled epic of their history on the expanses of the Nebraska plains. They strive to understand their fates, to reconcile with demons of the past, to live in accordance with the land and to die with grace. As the family grapples with the mysterious forces that both pull them apart and draw them inextricably back together, they must come to term with life's greatest and hardest lessons: the deception of passion, the pain of love, the vitality of art, and the supplication to nature's generosity and fury.Jim Harrisonis the author of three volumes of novellas,Legends of the Fall, The Woman Lit by Fireflies,andJulip;seven novels,Wolf, A Good Day to Die, Farmer, Warlock, Sundog, Dalva,andThe Road Home;seven collections of poetry; and a collection of nonfiction,Just Before Dark.He has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in northern Michigan and Arizona.Reading Group Guide
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. How is the portrait John Northridge II paints of himself in his memoir different from the picture we get through other characters? Do you think this was intentional on his part?
2. Who is the main character of this story? Whose narrative -- John Northridge II's, Nelse's, Naomi's, Paul's, or Dalva's -- did you most enjoy and why? Out of the characters we don't hear from directly -- including Duane, Neena, Adelle, and John Northridge III -- who would you most like to have heard from and why?
3. Much of the book takes place during the mid to late 1980s. Does this feel like a contemporary novel to you?
4. The characterization of Dalva as a young girl is particularly striking. How dilc