The Year We Left Home

The Year We Left Home (2011) by Jean Thompson. This is one of those books that is just fun to read. Thompson tells the story of the Erickson family of Grenada, Iowa. One generation removed from the farm, the Ericksons are a fairly typical American nuclear family. With two parents and four children, the clan is large enough to supply plenty of interesting characters to be presented in Thompson's wry and insightful style. She switches points of view throughout the novel in a style that is reminiscent of Johathan Franzen's sprawling novels, and that's a good thing. We follow the family's travails from January of 1973 through June of 2003, and often one character's story is used to tangentially to fill out the story of another character. All in all, a masterful novel. The only quibble I have is with the ending. I didn't want it to end. Grade: A-