Home Matters : Longing and Belonging, Nostalgia and Mourning in Women’s Fiction

Despite its typically regressive associations with homesickness, the longing associated with nostalgia may also function progressively as a vehicle for imaginatively 'fixing' the past in two senses: securing and mending or repairing. Considering fiction by two British and six American women writers of different generations and ethnicities, this study explores tensions between home and exile, insider and outsider, longing and belonging, loss and recovery. Rubenstein argues that nostalgia functions narratively as a strategy for interrogating not only notions of home, homesickness, and homeland but also cultural historical dislocation, aging, and moral responsibility. These narratives re-frame a significant locus of concern in contemporary (female) experience: personal and/or cultural dis-placement and longing for home are ultimately transmuted - imaginatively, at least - by a restorative vision that enables healing and emotional repair. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Home Matters: Longing and Belonging....Pages 1-9 Front Matter....Pages 11-11 Yearning and Nostalgia: Fiction and Autobiographical Writings of Virginia Woolf and Doris Lessing....Pages 13-33 Front Matter....Pages 35-35 Home is (Mother) Earth: Animal Dreams, Barbara Kingsolver....Pages 37-51 Home/lands and Contested Motherhood: The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven, Barbara Kingsolver....Pages 53-64 Inverted Narrative as the Path/Past Home: How the Garcia Girís Lost Their Accents, Julia Alvarez....Pages 65-77 Front Matter....Pages 79-79 Home/sickness and the Five Stages of Grief: Ladder of Years, Anne Tyler....Pages 81-94 Hom(e)age to the Ancestors: Praisesong for the Widow, Paule Marshall....Pages 95-109 Haunted Longing and the Presence of Absence: Jazz, Toni Morrison....Pages 111-123 Front Matter....Pages 125-125 Memory, Mourning, and Maternal Triangulations: Mama Day, Gloria Naylor....Pages 127-139 Amazing Grace and the Paradox of Paradise: Paradise, Toni Morrison....Pages 141-158 Fixing the Past, Re-Placing Nostalgia....Pages 159-165 Back Matter....Pages 167-210

Despite its typically regressive associations with homesickness, nostalgia may also function progressively by imaginatively securing, and mending or repairing the past. Looking at fiction by British and American women writers of different generations and ethnicities, Rubenstein explores tensions between home and exile, insider and outsider, longing and belonging, loss and recovery, mourning and emotional resolution. She argues that nostalgia is a strategy for interrogating not only notions of home, homesickness, and homeland but also cultural or historical dislocation, aging, and moral responsibility. These narratives address a concern in contemporary women's experience: personal and/or cultural displacement are restored—imaginatively, at least—by a vision of healing and emotional repair.