When a car accident leaves photographer Burke Crenshaw in need of temporary full-time care, he finds himself back in the one place no forty-year-old chooses to be--his childhood bedroom. There, in the Vermont home where he grew up, Burke begins the long process of recuperation, and watches as his widowed father finds happiness in a new relationship that's a constant reminder of everything Burke wants and lacks.
Exploring local history, Burke discovers an intriguing series of letters from a Civil War soldier to his fiancΓ©. With the help of librarian Sam Guffrey, he begins to research a 125-year-old mystery that seems to be reaching into the present day. The more Burke delves into the past, the more he's forced to confront the person he has become: the choices he made and those he avoided, his ideas of what it takes to be a successful gay man, his feelings about his mother's death, and the suppressed tension that simmers between himself and his father.
Compelling, frankly funny, and often wise, The Road Home is the story of one man's coming to terms with who he is, what he wants out of life, and where he belongs--and the complex, surprising path that finally takes him there.
"Piercingly accurate and sweetly hopeful." --Booklist
"An involving. . .narrative about the importance of being true to one's self." --Publishers Weekly
From Publishers Weekly
In this gentle coming-of-middle-age tale, Ford (Last Summer) follows a gay Boston photographer recuperating at his father's smalltown Vermont home, where he's drawn into an eerie Civil War mystery. Following a car accident that shattered his leg, 40-year-old Burke Crenshaw is less than happy to find himself in his childhood bedroom (still sporting a Raiders of the Lost Ark movie poster) for six weeks, tended to by his father, Ed, and Ed's girlfriend, Lucy. Resentful of his country convalescence and feeling restless, Burke finds relief in a photography project inspired by Lucy's deceased husband's book on Vermont's Civil War militias. Fascinated by the love letter of soldier Amos Hague, Burke launches a quest to uncover the truth about the infantryman and his fiancΓ©, with assistance from a witty smalltown librarian and the 20-year-old son of an old high school crush. Though Ford fails to follow through on a promising supernatural twist, he crafts an involving if low-key slice-of-life narrative about the importance of being true to one's self. (June)
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From Booklist
After sustaining injuries in a car accident, Burke returns to the family farm in Vermont where he is touched by the sight of memorabilia from his horsey, 4-H childhood, and feels the press of time. What he thinks is a photograph of Marshall, his high-school friend and first same-sex encounter, is actually of Marshall's 20-year-old son. Burke's father, whose traditional values contradict his sinful life with his widowed girlfriend, Lucy, still feels resentment that Burke βthrew away a teaching career for the life of an artist,β left Vermont, and became a Boston photographer. Reticence defines this father-son relationship since βdiscussing their personal lives was not something the Crenshaw men did. Particularly when one of them was having relationships with other men.β Still, the old guy digs out his own father's camera equipment for Burke, who is inspired by the rare Hasselblad 1600f to rise from his sick bed, and crutch-hop downstairs on his way to new beginnings in this midlife coming-of-age novel that is both piercingly accurate and sweetly hopeful. --Whitney Scott