The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce

Posted by Ms K on December 3, 2025 in All | Leave a comment

I have a real dose of the last lines blues. I loved this one. It made a tough work-week easier because I could race home at night and just throw myself back into it. It was one of those rare beauties.

Rachel Joyce has a special place in my book-loving being because her story The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry has stuck firmly in my heart since I read it.

So let’s talk families because this one is a doozy.

Vic Kemp is an internationally renowned artist and adored father to four complex children (Susan, Netta, Goose and Iris) who lost their mother too early. To say they are immeshed, and that Vic is a narcissist is to say the sun is hot. He dictates the moods and the tempo of the whole family, causing emotional damage to each of his children in small and constant ways so when he calls them with the promise of big news, they do what they always do – they run to him anticipating this news will be about a new painting, another masterpiece.

But Vic announces he is remarrying Bella Mae, a fellow artist 50 years his junior who no-one knew existed. The fallout is swift. Vic takes Bella Mae to his summer home in Italy and the children kick off a Mexican standoff and refuse to join them. And then Vic is found dead, drowned in the lake by the house.

Descending on the villa, Susan and Netta and Goose and Iris come face to face with Bella Mae and when they are not judging her, they scour the rooms of the villa for a will and to try to piece together their father’s sudden death. There is no will, no final masterpiece and no-one can quite make out if Bella Mae is a force of good or evil. With no answers, they all end up staying in the house together, waiting and being forced to consider their father’s legacy and as the European summer hots up, so does their anger. They fray, they fracture.

It’s a classic study of family, of memory, identity, patriarchy and art so basically, she’s an addictive read from first line to the last.

Lots of families teeter on brink of destruction all the time and despite how smooth the waters appear on the surface, it can be choppy underneath and there are rips and sink holes. Thank goodness for love and family admin that keeps things more or less afloat and intact.

Joyce finishes off the story beautifully – I still have the image shared in that last chapter burned in my brain so Readheads, if you’re looking for something to bury your head and heart in (and an escape over the holidays), look no further than The Homemade God.

And that is my 2 cents worth.