The Beginning of Homewood Study Guide

The Beginning of Homewood is addressed as a letter to the narrator's brother. A trip to Greece, two years earlier, began the narrator's meditation on the story of Sybela Owens, who is their great-great-great-grandmother, and the matriarch of a place known as Homewood. The narrator feels that the story is connected to the brother's plight. He is imprisoned, awaiting trial for murder and prison break. Sybela was also imprisoned as a slave. The story itself is an oral tradition, passed down to the narrator through several voices, among them, Aunt May and Aunt Bess, whose voices seem to combine with the narrator's account. (read more)