But Where’s Home?
Toni Ann Johnson describes But Where’s Home? as a novella with linked short stories, but she underestimates the effectiveness of her writing. This story, about a Black working-class family’s ascent into the upper-middle class, reads as a single, sleek narrative, slipping back and forth through the timeline of one family. If I hadn’t been told “novella and short stories,” I would have read them as chapters of a time-skimming family saga.
In the early 1960s, Philip and Velma Arrington, a young professional Black couple, move to a suburban area outside of New York City to be nearer to the mental health clinic where Philip works as chief psychologist. But the residents of the predominantly white town do not make it easy for the family to settle in, especially as their wealth grows and they are able to buy their way into what their neighbors see as “white spaces”—ballet classes, country clubs, ski vacations, sprawling affluent neighborhoods.
Philip tries to grab whiteness with both hands, throwing himself into work, extravagant spending, and extramarital affairs with white women. Velma, angry at Philip’s philandering, at the limitations of motherhood, and at not being accorded the respect she thinks their wealth affords them, directs her rage at her daughter Madeline and stepdaughter Livia. As Maddie and Livia grow and leave home, they not only carry the trauma of Velma’s abuse and Philip’s neglect, but also the disconnection from Blackness brought on by a childhood suspended between cultures.
Johnson’s writing is award-winning, and it’s easy to see why. Though short, But Where’s Home? is powerful. This is a story of Blackness and whiteness, of jealousy, narcissism, and identity, and of family and self. An intense and impactful book.
