The Homemade God

After the sudden death of a renowned artist, his four adult children travel to Italy to sort out his affairs with his much-younger wife in this moving novel.

World-famous artist Vic Kemp has relied on his four children ever since their mother died when they were young. Netta, the oldest, is a litigator who often serves as co-parent to her siblings. Susan is a housewife who cooks and cleans for both her husband and her father. Goose’s thwarted artistic ambitions have left him resigned to a job in Vic’s studio. Iris, the baby, drops everything the moment her father calls.

When Vic summons the siblings with the promise of big news, they hope their father is about to tell them he has finished the mysterious masterpiece he claims will be the capstone to his career. Instead, he announces he’s getting remarried. Bella-Mae, his wife-to-be, is apparently beautiful, a fellow artist, and twenty-seven to his seventy-six.

Six weeks later, he is found dead. There is no sign of his will, or his promised final painting.

Netta, Susan, Goose, and Iris gather at the house on Lake Orta to piece together what happened and prepare to bring their father’s body home. They spend the summer in a waiting game, living under the same roof as Bella-Mae and forced to confront Vic’s legacy and the buried wounds they have incurred as his children. So who is Bella-Mae? Is she the woman their father believed her to be, or is she the force that will destroy the family for good? How long can their old bonds hold?

With sparkling wit, compassion and tender insight, The Homemade God explores memory, identity, grief, healing, and the bonds of siblinghood—what happens when they splinter, and what it might take to find a new way forward.

Family is everything, even when it falls apart.