Home

Content Warning: This section of the guide depicts abduction, domestic violence, and the exploitation of minors.

In Home, Harlan Coben demonstrates how trauma has the potential to completely undo a family by depicting families destroyed by disaster, secrets, and lies. He also illustrates this theme through Myron’s life: Although his career-ending injury presents a different kind of trauma than the one that centers the novel, the repetition of the incident renders it a significant motif: “You rip off the bandage all at once versus slowly peeling it away…I could also add the cliche about being thrown into the deep end. The suddenness forced me to act. It made me go to law school. It made me become a sports agent” (69). With Myron’s history, Coben highlights how trauma resonates through his life in unexpected ways, and he continues his examination of the effects of trauma with the Baldwin family’s experience and even delves further into it with the events of Myron’s fiancée Terese’s life.

Coben highlights the effects of trauma through the Baldwin family, showing how it affects every aspect of their lives. Even the house itself—the scene of the supposed crime—becomes a symbol of their destroyed family.