A Home at the End of the World

Set primarily in Cleveland, Ohio, and extending into the late 1980s, the novel traces the intertwined lives of Bobby Morrow and Jonathan Glover, two boyhood friends, and the people drawn into their orbit. Told in alternating first-person chapters, the narrative follows Bobby, Jonathan, Jonathan's mother Alice Glover, and Clare, Jonathan's future roommate, as they search for love, family, and home.

Bobby's earliest memory sets the novel's keynote: riding in a convertible with his father and older brother Carlton, he passes a beautiful farm and shouts "We're home," though the family lives nowhere near it. Bobby grows up in a tract house bordering a cemetery. Carlton, a charismatic teenager, introduces nine-year-old Bobby to drugs and music. One night at a party, Carlton runs toward the house and crashes through a closed sliding glass door. A shard of glass pierces his neck, and he bleeds to death. Bobby watches from the hallway. His mother retreats behind a bedroom door and later dies from a probable overdose of sleeping pills. His father turns to alcohol.

Jonathan grows up nearby in a tense household. His father, Ned, runs a struggling movie theater. His mother, Alice, a sharp-witted transplant from New Orleans, is anxious and reclusive. After she delivers a baby girl who dies shortly after birth, Alice withdraws further, and the couple settles into passionless coexistence. Jonathan treasures a pink baby doll; Ned gently tells him to play with it only at home. Alice channels her energy into elaborate cooking.

The boys meet on the first day of seventh grade and become inseparable. Neglected at home, Bobby essentially moves into the Glover household, sleeping on Jonathan's floor and bringing over his records. Jonathan falls in love with Bobby one night when he watches Bobby touch a mole on his own wrist with tender curiosity, revealing that he inhabits his body with the same wonder Jonathan feels. The boys roam Cleveland at night and eventually touch each other sexually, then resume talking about ordinary things as if nothing has occurred.

Alice watches Bobby's growing presence with unease, recognizing him as a fellow outsider but worrying he is pulling Jonathan away. Bobby, always polite, brings Alice records and dances with her in Jonathan's room. She discovers the boys smoking marijuana; Jonathan dares her to try it, and she does. On Easter eve, she discovers Jonathan and Bobby in the family car with their pants down. When she tries to discuss Jonathan's friendships, he accuses her of using up all the air in the house. She slaps him, ending their old closeness.

Jonathan leaves for New York University. Bobby stays in Cleveland, enrolls in culinary school, and opens a restaurant that fails. His father, Burt Morrow, dies in a house fire. Bobby moves into the Glovers' house, cooking dinner every night while Alice works and teaches baking classes.

In New York, Jonathan lives with Clare, a 36-year-old jewelry designer with a history of a failed marriage and addiction. They share a deep, sisterly bond without sex. Jonathan also begins a purely sexual relationship with Erich, a bartender and aspiring actor, keeping the two spheres separate.

When Ned's doctor orders him to Arizona for his emphysema, Alice pushes Bobby to leave. Bobby moves to New York with suitcases full of records. Clare gives him a crew cut and a wardrobe of vintage clothes, catalyzing a new sense of self. One night, standing alone in the kitchen, Bobby feels his dead brother Carlton's presence and resolves to pursue life in both their names.

The three settle into a domestic rhythm, calling themselves "the Hendersons," a fictional family. Clare, approaching 40, grows serious about having a baby and seduces Bobby. Bobby tells Jonathan they are "really a family" now. Jonathan simulates happiness but privately feels hollow, wanting both of them. Meanwhile, Jonathan and Erich realize they have never used protection with each other. They hold each other in silence rather than discuss what this might mean.

Jonathan visits his parents in Arizona. Ned, wheezing and pale, asks Jonathan to decide where to bury him. On a desert walk, Jonathan struggles to tell his father something important but cannot. Ned suffers a severe breathing episode and slowly recovers. They walk home in silence.

Back in New York, Jonathan tells Clare he needs to "get a life." After an evening when all four dance and sing on the rooftop, Jonathan vanishes, leaving a note wishing Bobby and Clare happiness. Without him, their relationship loses its spark. Months later, Bobby encounters Jonathan, who confesses he has "fallen in love with both of you" and cannot love anyone else. He walks away. In spring, Jonathan leaves a message: His father died that morning.

The three reunite at Ned's funeral. Clare is secretly pregnant. Jonathan erupts, telling Bobby to take his family and be the better son. They fight in the street until Clare pulls them apart. Later, Alice confesses to Clare that she planned to leave Ned for 30 years but could never relinquish her kitchen and routines. Clare holds her, and when the boys return, gathers everyone into a circle.

Driving east, Clare reveals her pregnancy in a fallow Pennsylvania field. They buy a house near Woodstock, New York, with Clare's inheritance and open a restaurant called the Home Café. Their daughter, Rebecca, is born; the three have arranged not to know which man is the biological father. Jonathan wakes Rebecca before dawn to see her. Clare discovers a fierce maternal love. Bobby sees Rebecca as a citizen of his hopeful future.

Erich arrives for a visit, visibly ill. He reveals he was diagnosed with a serious illness five months earlier. Bobby insists he keep coming, and Erich moves in. He declines unpredictably but devotes himself to Rebecca.

Alice, now a successful caterer in Arizona, gives Jonathan the box of Ned's ashes. He refuses to scatter them, insisting he will do so wherever he makes a home. She warns that three is an odd number and one always gets squeezed out.

Clare, watching Rebecca emerge into consciousness, fears her daughter's earliest memories will be shaped by death. One morning she packs far more than a short trip requires, tells the boys she is visiting her mother, and drives west with her daughter.

Bobby, on the roof replacing shingles, knows Clare is not coming back. Late that night, Jonathan leads him barefoot into the alfalfa field near the house. They sift Ned's ashes into the ground, walking small circles in silence. Jonathan tells Bobby that if something happens to him, his ashes should go here too. Bobby agrees: This is where they all belong.

In a final chapter set months before Erich's death, Jonathan narrates an April afternoon when the three men wade into a freezing pond. Standing in the shallow water, holding Erich's hand, Jonathan experiences what he has pursued his entire life: a moment of full presence. Not happiness exactly, but a complete inhabitation of the moment. Bobby announces the minute is up, and they take Erich back to shore.