Customer Reviews

Homeland

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It's heartening to read a prolific writer whose work grows richer with each new publication. Thankfully, Mazza's customarily unsentimental characterization remains ruthlessly present in Homeland, but this novel also provides the reader with new gifts.

Homeland's main character, Ronnie, evokes a reader's pathos. Her unwitting vulnerability and sexual naivete make her a rare figure among Mazza's sexually savvy main characters, rendering her psychological life even more mysterious than Mazza's usually complex protagonists. The story itself grapples brilliantly with themes of family legacy, filial obligation, and childhood guilt.

On another level, the narrative also raises important metafictional questions. The novel's principal mystery involves the interface of narrative, truth, and memory, which subtly interrogates the meaning of narrative itself. Ultimately, the reader is left to question the power of narrative and its capacity to shape one's psyche. When the plot's main mystery is revealed, the reader may even wonder whether someone can really exist whose life remains unwritten.

This is the rare novel. It offers both a feast of ideas and the immersing satisfaction of more "traditional" narrative elements. Mazza, however, is a terrifically talented writer whose fine work is anything but "traditional."

For those interested, the San Francisco Humanities Review has published online a long scholarly review of Homeland by Harriet Rafter, who teaches courses in the California novel at San Francisco State University.
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