Home Fires

An Intimate Portrait of One Middle-Class Family in Postwar America

By: Donald Katz, Jonathan Alter - introduction, Ricky Ian Gordon - afterword

Narrated by: Joe Barrett, Jonathan Alter - introduction, Ricky Ian Gordon - afterword

Home Fires is the powerful saga of the Gordon family--real people, names unchanged. Spanning nearly five decades, from the end of World War II to the early 1990s, their story has the scope, depth, wealth of incident, and emotional intensity of a great novel, and an abundance of humor, scandal, warmth, and trauma--the recognizable components of family life. This is also a masterful chronicle of the turbulent postwar era, illuminating the interplay between private life and profound cultural changes.

Donald Katz begins his account in 1945, when Sam Gordon comes home from the war to his young wife, Eve, and their two-year-old, Susan, eager to move his family into the growing middle class. After a few years in the Bronx, Sam and Eve move to a new Long Island subdivision and have two more children. As the '50s yield to the '60s, the younger Gordons fly out into the culture like shrapnel from an artillery shell, each tracing a unique trajectory: Susan, early into rock 'n' roll and civil rights, Vassar girl, feminist, author of "The Politics of Orgasm", and recovering drug addict; Lorraine, teenage beatnik and leftie, onetime member of a women's rock band, longtime follower of an Indian religious teacher; Sheila, the "good" daughter who married then remarried, with a big suburban house, two kids, and a therapist; and Ricky, the youngest, witness to the family traumas and cause of a few himself, openly gay, eclectically New Age, and a successful songwriter and composer. And all Sam and Eve ever wanted--like millions of others who had experienced the Depression and the war--was a "normal family".

Katz tells the Gordons' story--from the unraveling of Sam and Eve's American dream to the slow, hopeful reknitting of the family--marshaling a vivid cast of supporting characters. Deftly juxtaposing day-to-day family life with landmark public events, Katz creates a rich and revealing portrait of the second half of the 20th century in America.

©1992 Donald Katz (P)2014 Donald Katz

EVE. At the end of the day the story was hers

What an amazing natural family and they were able to stay together and love each other and experience the pits of life and raise above it. Now I want to read the books written by Susan and Lorraine. Ricky is 1 brave man with the love and support and understanding of this amazing family gave full expression of himself. Congratulations to all, you had the inherent strength regardless of external influences to overcome.

sad but true

this is such a wonderful life story of a normal family. I truly enjoyed it.

Great Insights

I now have a better idea of what motivated my older relatives to make the decisions they made in their lives

Incredible Nostalgia

If you could sum up Home Fires in three words, what would they be?

Family's know pain.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Home Fires?

Sam coming to terms with his children.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Joe Barrett does a great job with what you think the voices would sound like. Brings good emotion to the story.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

More laughs than crys.

Any additional comments?

If you grew up in this era, and had parents from the depression, with siblings spread apart in age like I did. This book will bring so many memories & emotions back to you. There are lessons for everyone in the book though. Very entertaining!

Perfect for audio --

If you could sum up Home Fires in three words, what would they be?

Like being there

What did you like best about this story?

The people, especially Mr.and Mrs. Gordon and the depiction of the 60s-70s.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The narrator takes a few risks with the voices / accents. I think they work. Overall, he does a wonderful job. I'll look for for his other titles.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

How do you feel after an O'Neill play or a Roth novel?

A Struggle to Savor!

Because Home Fires is such a deliciously lengthy listen, don't be surprised if you often need to put it aside, because like a box of fine chocolate, it's a treat to be savored. Encompassing a half-century, Donald Katz's rich, magical weaving of history and no-holds-barred biography is seamless in its compelling beauty and complexity. Not one Gordon family member escapes the steady intensity of Katz's burning gaze into his or her life.

Especially those of us Baby Boomers caught in the undertow of the bewildering historical and cultural tsunamis which battered the last half of the 20th century will readily relate to the pain, struggle, confusion, and hope which unceasingly washed over us. Listening to gifted narrator Joe Barrett infuse Katz's masterpiece with knowing, understanding breath is an unexpectedly rare treat no Audible listener should miss, and gaining the added opportunity to hear Ricky Ian Gordon sum up his family's saga could not have been a more fulfilling conclusion.

You'll have yourself to thank for not missing this superlative family saga!

Very real

Having a wife the terapist, and struggling with anxiety myself. Semicolon this book gives a succinct looked into the imperfection of life and family.

unforgettable

The best hours of this summer have been spent listening to Homefires. I will miss it, I already miss it.

to the Goldens: thank you for lending your lives to us. such a precious gift.

and to Donald Katz, thank you for being there to write this story down, I'll. take it with me always, in my heart, when the words aren't available.

to listeners: it's not long enough. trust me.

Profound honesty.

Home Fires documents the vulnerability of the human soul through eras of interpersonal and world change. Overwhelming at times, relatable events and turmoil. The tenacity and perseverance of parents and children was palpable.

The Way We Were

The word "epic" is thrown around a lot, especially by publicists. This is a rare case where it is wholly deserved.

I first read "Home Fires" around 15 years ago, discovering a monumental work that is really two ambitious books in one. It is the intimate, multigenerational story of a real American family, which in itself would be no small accomplishment. But then Don Katz uses the family saga as a framework on which he hangs the country's entire postwar social history. There is Vietnam, then folksingers and later rock 'n' roll, drugs, economic turmoil and our migration to the suburbs. It is related in such rich detail that countless throwaway sentences must have taken a week's research apiece.

As a new audiobook all these years later, "Home Fires" seems a new experience, somehow even more substantive and insightful than before. Narrator Joe Barrett weaves his way carefully through the twists and turns of each year, one after another. His voicing of characters is superb. Sure, all the Brooklyn males may sound more or less like Sam Gordon, but Mr. Barrett manages boys and girls, women, singers and prominent figures. His LBJ is passable, and his Richard Nixon pitch-perfect. Like the best of audiobooks, "the read" adds new dimensions to a remarkable work of journalism and literature. It's a long book. Totally worth it.