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Half the house

Richard Hoffman

1995175 pagesabout 3–4 hours
1995
first published
  • 1995Harcourt Brace · 175 pages · ENGISBN 9780151001743
  • 1996Harcourt Brace & Co. · 190 pages · ENGISBN 9780156004671
  • 2015New Rivers Press · 217 pages · ENGISBN 9780898233391

Half the House is the story of a family repeatedly visited by death and suffering; of a boy burdened with a terrible secret; of a father and son estranged by grief and anger. Richard Hoffman recalls his boyhood in postwar, blue collar Allentown, PA, a world of breweries and ballfields, by turns idyllic and brutal. He depicts his family's struggles to maintain their dignity while caring for two of his brothers, who are terminally ill, and reveals how, under such circumstances, hope and denial become one; love and rage are inextricably fused; and silence and unreality threaten.

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ThemesFamily

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