Austin Smith

Home? Austin Smith

"Austin Smith's debut novel Home? is a contemporary exploration of change and expectations. It's also a novel about the concept of home, and about how the people and things that we care about shape who we are. These are themes that seem particularly relevant in our age of off-ramps and strip-malls, and it's against this background of anomie and voidness that Austin's novel contrasts sharply. The book looks at change and themes of mortality through a lens of the day-to-day in a way that is almost committedly quotidian, and refrains from imposing an "answer" on its characters or shaping the events it relates into a morality tale. It's a good book. You should read it."