One Book/One New Paltz selects Toni Morrison’s Home for community read

NEW PALTZ – One Book/One New Paltz at the State University of New York at New Paltz announces the selection of Home by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison. A series of events and conversations based on Morrison’s novella are scheduled throughout November both on campus and in the community.

The narrative focuses on a young African-American man, Frank Money, who has returned from the Korean War in the 1950s. Due to traumatic experiences both in his childhood and during the war, he is reluctant to return to his hometown of Lotus, Ga., and instead travels to the Pacific Northwest. His experiences, the reasons for his ultimate return home and what happens once he gets there, drive the story.

Associate Vice President for Regional Engagement Gerald Benjamin, director of the Center for Research, Regional Education & Outreach, founded One Book/One New Paltz in 2005 as a way to bridge the “town and gown” dichotomy through the unifying influence of reading. It was a natural synergy between the two communities because of the college being a home of learning, scholarship, and reading; similarly, the New Paltz community is invested in the reading experience through public libraries, leisure reading, and fostering literacy in their children.

The full One Book/One New Paltz schedule of events can be found at www.onebookonenewpaltz.org.