Unique and complex, this novel tells an unexpectedly moving story of love, loss, and how the past shapes—and haunts—our present. An ingenious narrative that explores the meaning of love and interconnectedness across time.
KIRKUS, starred review
Quiet, smoothly written, and deeply internal, this is a gift to readers who enjoy the act of story-creation, -telling, and -experiencing.
LIBRARY JOURNAL, starred review
American author Portia Elan’s debut is a gentle hymn to found families – the kin we choose rather than inherit – and it’s fitting that it reads that way, assembled from allegiances. Elan knows what her characters will discover: stories are how we claim one another.
THE GUARDIAN, review
Calling a book profound feels trite. It’s a tired word for remarkable works. Yet, in considering Homebound, it is hard to find another term quite so fitting. Certainly, Homebound moved me more than anything I’ve read in a long while, and I know it will stay with me for a long time to come. I welcome that.
THE BC REVIEW, review
Elan deftly knots these threads together, gradually revealing layered stories about queer love and loss, making peace with one’s mistakes, and finding a path through obstacles outside your control. Like Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven (2014), Homebound portrays a plausible, forlorn version of the future, one that’s tied to the past through the staying power of stories.
BOOKLIST, starred review
Elan’s magnificent debut traces the reverberations of a computer game on the work of late-21st-century ecologists and seafaring migrants in the distant future… Elan intersperses the sprawling epic with fascinating ontological discussions on the nature of life (“You are a part of our collective intelligence, part of the great spiral of being,” Tamar tells Chaya). It’s a marvel.
PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY, starred review
Homebound approaches the scale of the characters’ work with optimism, rather than impatience or despair, and rewards the reader with small glimpses of how that work reverberates across generations. In a moment when I often find myself reading for escape—reading, in essence, to leave this reality for a little while—Homebound made me want to stay, too.
THE BROOKLYN RAIL, review
Homebound is the most original and arresting novel I’ve read in a very long time. Elan has created a century-spanning epic that’s also an utterly intimate story of love, loss, and found family. What a joy; what a marvel.
Anna North, New York Times bestselling author of Outlawed and Bog Queen
A fascinatingly plausible and atmospheric story of a future shaped by tech and love intertwined.
Emma Donoghue, #1 bestselling author of The Paris Express
A novel to get lost in, HOMEBOUND is deeply felt, deftly crafted and beautifully written. A story of friendship and family, of hope and invention and love. An inspiring debut.
Charles Yu, National Book Award Winning author of Interior Chinatown
Beautiful, enthralling, and hopeful, Portia Elan’s Homebound imagines humanity’s future transformed by climate collapse, where the odds of survival are slim, and every choice has a price. Shifting effortlessly between the fragility of ecological webs and artificial intelligence to the raw emotion of punk rock and the formative power of computer games, Elan’s novel asks us to consider the value of hope and storytelling in the face of uncertainty. With lyrical prose and sweeping imagination, Homebound is a moving, insightful story of wayfinding and what it means to come home. There are scenes in this book that will live in my heart forever.
Loghan Paylor, critically acclaimed author of The Cure for Drowning
Inventive and full of feeling. New insight into queerness and computer games unlocked!
Maggie Thrash, author of Rainbow Black
HOMEBOUND’s multiple narratives gloriously span centuries into the future to chart the voyages people take to find connection and community. Portia Elan’s ingenious novel is a puzzle-story, a nostalgic ode to 80s video games and punk rock, and a speculative look into the ways technology has reshaped longing. You need to read it!
Kevin Chong, Giller Prize-shortlisted author of The Double Life of Benson Yu
Portia Elan 