Home by Toni Morrison

Suddenly I'm reading all kinds of books about PTSD in war veterans (I didn't bother posting about Nicholas Sparks' The Lucky One but I just read that too - chick lit in his typical formulaic manner).  The protagonist of Nobel Prize winner Morrison's latest novel is Frank, a southern black veteran of the Korean War whose two "home boy" best friends did not make it back.  It spans a few days as he travels from the north back home to small town Georgia when he receives a letter indicating his younger sister who has always depended on him is in danger.  Morrison's prose is so easy to read, almost poetic.  In scant words and pages you really feel the impact the war had on Frank and the surprising relief he feels at returning to the home he'd been so desperate to escape.  Ultimately it allows him to open up and admit to a horrific act he committed during the War.  His sister is no less sympathetic - picked on from birth by a step-grandmother, she has developed a pattern of allowing herself to be used by unsavoury characters and by the end realizes she must learn to rely on her own strength.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book!