Review by Rebecca Foster
If, like me, you’ve been following Rachel Joyce’s career ever since her 2012 debut, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, I have good news to impart: The Homemade God is her best book so far. It tells the tragicomic story of four siblings, initially drawn together and then dramatically blown apart by their father’s mysterious death. Despite some weighty themes of alcoholism, depression and marital struggles, there is an overall lightness of tone and style that make this novel an utter pleasure to read.
Vic Kemp, the title figure, was a larger-than-life painter whose oeuvre divided the critics. After his wife’s early death from cancer, he raised their three daughters and son with the help of a rotating cast of nannies (whom he inevitably slept with). At 76, he issued the shocking news that he was getting married again: to Bella-Mae, an artist in her twenties – much younger than any of his children. With Bella-Mae, he moved from London to his second home in Italy just weeks before drowning in Lake Orta. Netta, his eldest daughter, is sure there’s something fishy about this. After all, he knew the lake so well, and would never have gone out for a swim when he knew there was a mist rolling in. So did Bella-Mae kill him for his money? And what happened to his last painting?
The interactions between Netta, Susan, Goose (Gustav), and Iris, plus Bella-Mae and her cousin Laszlo, are all flawlessly crafted. The Kemps’ derelict villa and the surrounding small town are appealing settings, and there are a lot of intriguing references to food, fashion, and modern art as well. Waiting for the autopsy report, searching for the latest version of Vic’s will, and carping over the division of his belongings ruin what should be a paradise for all of them. A combination of flashbacks and surges forward reveal much to readers about these flawed and flailing characters.
Iris is a little less fleshed out than the others, and her bombshell revelation felt a little distasteful to me. Joyce does also occasionally resort to delivering obvious (though true) messages through an omniscient narrator. Perhaps they would be more palatable if they arose organically through dialogue or indirectly via a character’s thought process. An example: “When someone dies or disappears, we can only tell stories about what might have been the case or what might have happened next.” Or “There were some things you never got over. No amount of thinking or talking would make them right: the best you could do was find a way to live alongside them.” I also doubted that Goose would have been given permission to view his father’s body over two months after his death; even with embalming, the corpse would have started to decay within weeks. But these are all minor quibbles that didn’t significantly hamper my enjoyment.
Joyce got her start working in the theatre, and that’s evident here from the marvellous success of her scenes and dialogue. It only appears to be a simple matter to move people from place to place and into different subsets to see what they might do. It’s as if the author has taken the best of her talent in other media (she’s written numerous radio plays, for instance) and brought it to bear here. I found it particularly fascinating to watch how Goose starts off seeming like a minor character but eventually becomes the main POV character – with a couple of secrets that end up changing our entire understanding of the plot. And ending with a wedding – hey, it was good enough for Shakespeare with his comedies – offers a lovely occasion for a potential reconciliation after a sometimes sombre storyline.
Although I’ve read all eight of Joyce’s books, I’ve sometimes found them disappointing – sentimental and twee. She has really upped her game here. This feels like she’s moving into the more expansive, elegant, and empathetic territory of masterpieces by Anne Enright (The Green Road), Patrick Gale (Notes from an Exhibition), Maggie O’Farrell (Instructions for a Heatwave), and Tom Rachman (The Italian Teacher). If you missed out on The Homemade God when it was published last year, now’s your chance to experience her highest calibre work yet.
Rebecca Foster is a freelance proofreader, literary critic, and judge of the McKitterick Prize (for debut novelists over 40). Most of her writing can be found on her blog, Bookish Beck.
Rachel Joyce, The Homemade God (Penguin, 2026). 978-1804994344, 400 pp., paperback.
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