A.M. Homes

A.M. Homes (born 1961) writes fiction that makes most “transgressive” literature look tame. Her novels and stories are set in the apparently stable world of American suburban middle-class life — nice houses, good schools, functional marriages — and they systematically reveal the violence, perversion, and existential despair that the surfaces conceal. She is one of the most consistently provocative American novelists of the past three decades, and her best work achieves a pitch of controlled horror that is genuinely disturbing.

Life and Career

Amy Michael Homes was born in Washington, D.C., and was adopted at birth — a biographical fact that became the subject of her memoir The Mistress’s Daughter (2007). She studied at Sarah Lawrence College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has taught at Columbia University, Yale, and Princeton.

Her first novel, Jack (1989), is narrated by a teenage boy who discovers his father is gay — a subject that was considerably more charged in 1989 than it is now, and Homes handles it with precision and emotional honesty. In a Country of Mothers (1993) explored the relationship between a therapist and a patient who may be the daughter the therapist gave up for adoption.

The End of Alice (1996) is her most notorious novel: narrated by a convicted pedophile and murderer in prison, corresponding with a suburban teenage girl who is conducting her own sexual predation of a twelve-year-old boy. The novel was attacked for being exploitative and defended as a serious exploration of the psychology of predation. It remains deeply unsettling.

Music for Torching (1999) — about a suburban couple who set fire to their own house as a kind of desperate gesture — is her most sustained satire of suburban life. This Book Will Save Your Life (2006) was her warmest novel, a Los Angeles story about a wealthy recluse who reconnects with the world.

May We Be Forgiven (2012) — about a Nixon scholar who inherits his brother’s entire life (house, children, wife) after his brother commits murder in a burst of rage — won the Women’s Prize for Fiction (then the Orange Prize). It is a sprawling, darkly comic, oddly generous novel about American violence, American guilt, and the possibility of redemption through reluctant responsibility.

Her story collections — The Safety of Objects (1990), Things You Should Know (2002), Days of Awe (2018) — contain some of her most concentrated work.

Key Works

• The Safety of Objects (1990)
• The End of Alice (1996)
• Music for Torching (1999)
• May We Be Forgiven (2012)

Collecting Homes

Jack first edition (Macmillan, 1989) — debut — brings $50–$200. The End of Alice first edition (Scribner, 1996) signed brings $50–$150 — its controversial reputation adds to collecting interest. May We Be Forgiven first edition (Viking, 2012) signed brings $40–$100. Homes signs at readings and events. Her work appeals to a literary collecting audience that values provocative, formally ambitious fiction. First editions of the story collections are undervalued.