Home by Toni Morrison

Frank and Cee are just two scared children. Running away from home and then coming back, never really finding where their home is. 

First they run from Texas leaving behind their field, their crop and their horse Sarah. In fact at that time, Cee was still in her mother’s womb. They escape from Texas, from what kinds of atrocities, we don’t know. They arrive at Lotus, Georgia with the hope that their grandpa Salem Money will give them shelter. 

He did give shelter - but barely that. His new wife Lenore, did not like the arrival of this large family in their house barely large enough for 3 people. And she expressed it often. Salem did not dare to criticise his wife, as she is the one who held the purse string.

As Franks’ parents were   out of the house working, the children were the ones facing the brunt of Lenore’s anger and frustration.

Frank and Cee never really complained to Ma and Pa about the mistreatment at the hands of their step grandmother. But even if they had done so, their parents were not in a place to talk back to Lenore.
The children survived somehow, and Frank became the protector of his little sister.

Finally after three years they moved out of Grappa’s house and to a rented place. Frank also moved out of the town, and enlisted himself and went to Korea.

Now a young girl, with no protector to care for or advise, Cee also has her escape. She elopes with a out of town boy called Principal to Atlanta.

When she realised that he had married her for an automobile - Lenore’s car which he got to drive frequently for errands, it was too late. He disappeared with the car.

Cee did not dare to come home, for the fear of reproaches she may get from Lenore.  Instead she started working in menial jobs. And finally started working as an assistant to a doctor.
Frank also returns from war. Like Cee he is also a broken man. Like Cee he also decides not to return to Lotus.

Until one day he received a letter saying “Cee be dead”. Not Cee is dead - Cee be dead, which means Cee will be dead soon. He has already witnessed the death of two of his childhood friends in the war and was unable to stop them. Can he stop this death? Can he protect his little sister, like he always did since childhood?