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Where do you live?

The answer to this seemingly simple question can be more complicated than you’d think.

Drawing on personal experience, Mary Gordon examines various forms of abode—from her childhood house in Far Rockaway to apartments in Palo Alto, Rome, and the Upper West Side—as well as the very concept of home and how it has evolved over time. Rich in insightful observations from writers and thinkers as diverse as Gaston Bachelard, Le Corbusier, Emerson, Colette, and Edith Wharton, At Home skillfully provokes us to probe our own thoughts about what home truly means to each of us. Notions of safety, morality, cleanliness, comfort, and the changing nature of the family are just a few of the colors Gordon uses to paint an intriguing portrait of a place we all thought we knew.