Philip Gulley
Home To Harmony (2000)
Author: Philip Gulley
Genre: Christian (Denominational-Quaker)/Gentle
Plot Summary:
Alternating between the past and present, the story is told by Sam Gardner, a small-town-Harmony native who has just happily accepted the position as pastor of Harmony Friends Meeting. Through the tales he tells about his fellow townspeople, Gardner paints a picture of Harmony that is sometimes critical but is overwhelmingly complimentary. The book is arranged into four main sections, according to season: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. Stories generally revolve around members of the church congregation -- their pasts as well as their present. The plot is entirely composed of vignettes about the characters and their lives. SPOILER: At the church revival, we meet the "World's Shortest Evangelist." Miss Rudy, the town librarian, secretly teaches older resident William Matthews to read. A Harmony chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous is created to help Uly Grant get sober. Gardner's family experiences culture shock when they visit his brother, Roger, and Roger's vegan girlfriend, Tiffany, for Thanksgiving. Amanda Hodge wins the National Spelling Bee and is adopted by her Aunt Miriam and Uncle Ellis. The Peacocks win $5 million in the lottery but refuse to accept it. Deena Morrison, former lawyer, starts the Legal Grounds Coffee Shop, an "oasis of civility" in this small town. "The Shroud of Harmony" (an image of Christ that appears in a quilt) turns out to be a coffee stain.
Geographical Setting: Harmony, Indiana
Time Period: 2000
Series: Book 1 of the "Harmony" series
Appeal Characteristics:
Home to Harmony is a leisurely novel. Its gentle pace can be attributed to its focus on a community that values a slow and steady lifestyle. If the story were told in a hurried manner, it would not reflect the traditional characters and setting of Harmony with any kind of accuracy. Gulley unveils Harmony to the reader in vignettes in which a problem is presented, fussed over, and ultimately resolved. The vignettes never leave a reader hanging, and so the novel can be picked up and put down after any given chapter, without fear of forgetting the storyline. The novel's humorous tone is a significant part of its appeal. The narrator, Sam Gardner, often offers up quips about his life as a pastor of a quirky congregation. It is not a laugh-out-loud-funny book, but it is humorous in a light, gentle, heartwarming manner. As well as being a humorous novel, Home to Harmony has a distinctly inspirational tone. Each chapter wraps up with a meaningful lesson learned through struggle with an everyday situation. In one episode, an alcoholic finds his way to sobriety by being called to help others with the same disease. In another episode, a local lawyer decides to fill a niche in the community (and a hole in her heart) by closing her legal practice and opening a coffee shop in its place. Gulley aims to showcase the characters' struggles and triumphs in a way that touches his readers' hearts. The frame of the story lends appeal, as well. Home to Harmony is set in a tiny town in Indiana, a couple hours' drive from "the city," where people are comfortable with the slow-paced lifestyle and emphasis on traditional, Christian values. Gulley employs a nostalgic frame, too. Sam's narration often includes flashbacks to his childhood days--Sunday dinners at Grandma's house, for example--to compare and contrast the Harmony of the past with the Harmony of today. As the reader finds out, some things have changed over the years, and some things have not! The characters of Gulley's novel are eccentric, almost to the point of being caricatures. Readers might easily imagine an uptight female figure from their own childhood when Gulley introduces them to the straightlaced schoolteacher Fern Hampton. The characters are not extremely complex or described in great detail by Gulley, but that is part of what makes them so familiar. Part of the appeal of this technique is that the characters can be fleshed out in the readers' imaginations. The characterization of Home to Harmony is a vehicle for the larger issues at hand--the everyday matters that test the congregation's faith in each other and God. Gulley employs a gentle and folksy storyline. There are no sudden surprises, and Gulley does not aim to offend. He touches on human issues of reproduction, death, abuse, divorce, and other difficult subjects with a careful hand, without ever employing explicit description. His writing style is unpretentious and conversational. Since they are narrated by a small-town Quaker pastor, the vignettes that make up Home to Harmony have the quality of a Sunday sermon. Gulley invites the reader into the story, just as a pastor might welcome new and old members of a congregation to the meetinghouse every weekend. At the very heart of the Quaker faith is the belief that everyone is on the level of a "friend"; even authority figures are addressed by their first names, and people are taught to treat their peers with respect and congeniality. Gulley's writing style reflects Quaker values in its attempt to embrace the reader in a conversation about family, community, and God, and in a way that is friendly and welcoming.
Read-alikes: Fans of this title and of Harmony's cast of characters will probably enjoy the subsequent 7 in Gulley's Harmony Series (in order): Just Shy of Harmony, Signs and Wonders, Christmas in Harmony, Life Goes On, A Change of Heart, The Christmas Scrapbook, and Almost Friends. Fans of the Harmony series will want to read Gulley's Front Porch Tales, if they haven't already. Front Porch Tales is a work of non-fiction about Gulley's life in Danville, Indiana. It has the same episodic structure, easy pace, lifelike characters, humor, and conversational style. This book is a chance to see the inspiration behind the Harmony series and the real "man behind the curtain," so to speak. Readers who like the small town setting and cast of familiar secondary characters of Harmony will enjoy Jan Karon's Home to Holly Springs, the first book in her Father Tim series. Father Tim is an Episcopalian minister who returns to his childhood home of Holly Springs, Mississippi after many decades and rediscovers his past; Holly Springs comes alive as vividly as Harmony does in Gulley's novel. Another inspirational series that shars the small town setting and vivid secondary characters is Gail Fraser's Lumby series, starting with The Lumby Line, which will be of particular interest to readers who enjoyed the humor and easy pace of Home to Harmony. Mark and Pam Walker are tired of their hurried life, so they move to the Northwest to turn an old Abbey into a bed and breakfast. Readers looking for a much slower-paced, thought-provoking novel might like Lisa Samson's Quaker Summer. Heather has a perfect, affluent life, but she feels it is keeping her from God's will; with the help of many close friends, she reexamines her life. For more humorous Christian fiction with good characterization set in Indiana, try Boo, the first in a series by Rene Gutteridge. Wolfe Boone, a horror novelist, is the most famous resident of Starky, IN, and when he becomes a Christian and gives up the genre, the townfolk are less than thrilled. If it's gentle small-town life that you find appealing, then Jan Karon's Mitford Series, starting with At Home in Mitford, would be another great choice, as would Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days. Karon's books take place in the fictional small town of Mitford, North Carolina, are filled with eccentrically loveable characters, and, like the Harmony titles, the narration is influenced by the perspective of the town minister/main character (though the Mitford books are in 3rd person narration, and the minister is Episcopal). Keillor's Wobegon books (not technically a series, but they do deal with the same fictional town in Minnesota) portray the nostalgic, humorous side of Midwestern small-town life. In particular, Lake Wobegon Days focuses on the coming of age of its narrator, a young man. Another title to try is Jessamyn West's The Friendly Persuasion, a collection of related stories which focuses on a Quaker family, the Birdwells, and their lives in Indiana following the Civil War. Though the subject matter is less gentle, fans of small-town titles might also enjoy Fannie Flagg's books, most notably Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. The flashback element found in Home to Harmony is present through the tales of Mrs. Threadgoode, and the featured bulletins from the gossipy town newsletter will remind readers of The Harmony Herald. Key elements in Fried Green Tomatoes are the strong bonds of female friendship, small-town life in Alabama, and the wacky characters similar to those found in Harmony. HOWEVER, fans of gentle fiction should beware of story lines involving the KKK, murder, racism, domestic violence, lesbian overtones, and other red-flags. Another author that writes about the Quaker faith in a small town is Jessamyn West. Try her book, Friendly Persuasion and its sequel Except for Me and Thee. An author that incorporates the Christian faith and humor into her books is Ann Spangler. Try She Who Laughs Last. Bailey White's Quite a Year for Plums, will appeal to readers who enjoy ambling comic novels with a set of interwoven stories about the inhabitants of a small town, in this case in Georgia. Finally, Clyde Edgerton"s Walking Across Egypt,though a more developed novel than Home to Harmony, shares its quietly funny and gentle tone and small town setting. For a story with religious and inspirational elements set in a small town, try The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans. For another humorous Christian novel, try Rococo: A Novel by Adriana Trigiani. This story tells about what happens amongst the Catholic women in a small New Jersey town when a painter arrives and shakes things up. Also suggest A Garden to Keep by Jamie Langston Turner. This is yet another small town novel, this time set in South Carolina, offering deep characters dealing with matters of faith in the modern world. The book follows a 40-something substitute teacher after her recent conversion to Christianity. This book also won the Christy Award, in 2002, for Contemporary Fiction. Wobegon Boy, one of Garrison Keillor's most popular novels, is a great place for Gulley's fans to begin to explore Keillor's writing. Readers who love Gulley's humorous tone and folksy storyline will adore Wobegon Boy, which follows protagonist John Tollefson, a public radio manager. Tollefson falls in love with an Ivy League university historian and struggles with everyday issues such as a cranky father, horrible boss, and financial trouble. Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor is another likely read-alike for the appeals of a small town setting, humor, and characters in the clergy. Also, like Gulley’s book, Keillor’s book is organized by the four seasons. Though not a “Christian” novel, Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine: A Novel is gentle and nostalgic. This classic shares the theme of changing times in a small town, the short story/vignette style, and the form of reminiscent memories, like those of Sam Gardner, with Gulley’s book. Readers looking for a humorous writing style will enjoy Charlene Ann Baumbich's Dearest Dorothy, Are We There Yet? Like Home to Harmony, this novel shares a rural setting. Dorothy Jean Etstra is an 87-year-old living in the small farming town of Partonville, Illinois where she interacts with the town's cast of characters and faces a situation that could change the town forever. Coming from a different denomination, Katherine Valentine's A Miracle at St. Cecilia's gives a Catholic bent to the small-town setting and close-knit feel of the Quaker community in Harmony. Father James Flaherty worries about his church being closed while the well-developed cast of characters in his congregation deals with its own problems, but a miracle at the end changes everything. (Warning for gentle fans: Catholics drink the booze!). Richard Russo's novel Empire Falls, by Richard Russo, is about a decent guy named Miles Roby who runs a restaurant in a small mill town in central Maine, and whose family life is falling apart. It is not classified as a Christian novel, but it contains many of the same appeal elements of Home to Harmony. The lightly humorous tone, cast of oddball characters, and slowly unfolding portrait of a small town rife with trials and tribulations are all reminiscent of Gulley's fiction.
Red Flags: None
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