Homebody: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "Dr. Calhoun Bellamy made it a point to stay away from his property while the crew was tearing down the old Varley house..." (more)
Key Phrases: wrecking bar, south parlor, Miz Evelyn, Miz Judea, Don Lark (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This romantic ghost story relies on a familiar horror backbone: a stranger with a tragic past moves into an old house that also has a tragic past, and is forced to reckon with the supernatural forces that dwell there. In Homebody, the stranger is an itinerant architect-builder who makes a lonely living by purchasing fixer-uppers, renovating them, and selling them. The house he buys in Greensboro, North Carolina, (where Orson Scott Card lives, in real life) has three mysteries attached to it: a tunnel in the basement, an attractive female squatter who refuses to leave, and a trio of weird doomsayers who live next door.

Card has a clear, well-honed writing style, full of human warmth--a style that is especially effective in the development of the central character, and in details of tools and techniques for renovating an old house. His approach to murder, danger, and threatening forces is so free of closeness or oppression that one might call it "anti-gothic." In an interview, he said, "I am completely uninterested in exploring evil. Evil (and weak and wicked) people are all evil (or weak, or wicked) in the same boring ways. But good people are infinitely interesting in the ways they manage to be good despite all the awful circumstances of their lives."

Homebody is a pleasant tale about the triumph of love over evil, with a couple of bizarre twists to give it spice. (Hint: don't read the Kirkus Review if you want to keep the plot a surprise.) --Fiona Webster --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Like its haunted-house centerpiece, Card's third dark fantasy novel (after The Lost Boys and Treasure Box) has great potential that shines through its superfluous detail. The Bellamy mansion is a venerable Victorian pile that has seen better days when it catches the eye of Don Lark, a widower who "turns his loneliness and grief into the restoration of beautiful old houses." Don's labors to restore the mansion to its former grandeur introduce him to a succession of women receptive to his emotional needs, including an amorous real estate agent, three dotty elderly neighbors who urge him to demolish the place and Sylvie Delaney, a squatter who has lived in the house secretly for a decade. All have been drawn to the mansion and its legacy of corrupted splendor through the shame of their private lives?and one turns out to be ghost whose past troubles are a touchstone for analogies between Don's home improvements and the need to rebuild dignity and character. Card's imaginative use of the haunted-house theme to explore the haunting power of guilt and remorse is deflated by facile observations on the theological significance of human suffering. All of his characters are sensitive studies of the crippling effects of emotional trauma, but several serve no purpose other than to speed the sometimes sluggish plot along with timely advice and miraculous feats of magic. These shortcomings aside, the novel is a powerful tale of healing and redemption that skillfully balances supernatural horrors with spiritual uplift. Film rights to Fresco Pictures.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: HarperTorch; 1st THUS edition (January 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061093998
• ISBN-13: 978-0061093999
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #660,819 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The "Wrong" Orson Scott Card, March 4, 2001

By	Reviewer "last1in" (Seminole, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This book was written by the Orson Scott Card who wrote Saints, not the one who wrote the Ender Wiggins series or the one who introduced us to the Maker. If you love the ruthless logic of Bean (in Card's latest winner, Ender's Shadow), or the wit of Lovelock, or the compelling alternate universe inhabited by Alvin, you will surely be disappointed with Homebody.

Homebody was written by an author well outside his lyrical or logical core. The characters are well-considered and true to their natures, but none of them are people you'd want to have a conversation with, much less live with for the length of a book. The characters are deliciously flawed, but Card seems unable to find the hook needed to make us care.

Card's obsession with loss and the grieving process led to a couple of extraordinary works (like Xenocide) and a couple of literary duds (like Lost Boys). This definitely falls into the latter category. In the process, he's trying to write into genres where his style and abilities are ill matched. He's successfully equaled or exceeded the masters like Clark and Heinlein in future-fiction that captures the imagination. He's done a good turn matching Lewis and Zelazny by creating Alvin's magical reality. But, when it comes to a good ghost story or a contemporary supernatural tale, Card should leave it to King or Koontz.

If you want a ghost, pass on Card; if you want Card, one of the country's best living authors, try a different title.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Supernatural suspense not horror, February 6, 2005

By	G. E. Williams "Nunah" (California) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

If you like stories with a scary supernatural element, but are uncomfortable with satanic evil material, this is a book you can enjoy. I liked this book; it is kind of scary without making you feel dirty. Not as much of a thinker as many of his books, but maybe more than most horror stories. Not more or less predictable than most horror. Good book, not his best, but worth a read.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Ghost Tale!, September 29, 2005

By	Michael A. Newman (New Hyde Park, NY) - See all my reviews

Card spins another good ghost tale (see Treasure Box) about Dan, a man with a troubled past (he blames himself for the death of his daughter) who has given up on relationships and now makes a living buying old rundown houses and restoring them.

Dan comes across the old Bellamy house which was built a century earlier by a man who wanted to give the perfect house to his wife. The couple were big society people and after they died, the house fell into the hands of various disreputable individuals and became a speakeasy and a brothel until ending up as an apartment house for college students.

The house has been deserted for about 10 years and the closest neighbors are two "wierd" old women who live in what was once the Bellamy house's carriage house.

Dan buys the house and finds that it is not as abandoned as he thought. Additionally, the wierd neighbors prefer that he destroy the house rather than fix it up. As the book progresses we see that the house in not just an inanimate object but possibly a living thing.

During the book Dan has to wrestle with his past and becomes the "crying-post" for his troubled real estate agent as well as his houseguest.

I really enjoyed this book and held back from giving it 5 stars only because I thought that Dan missed too many obvious clues about the "secret" of his houseguest and that I would have liked to have learned more about the house in its glory days.