Homecoming is a YA novel published by Cynthia Voigt in 1981. It is the work which introduced the family at the heart of what would come to be known collectively as the Tillerman Cycle. This a series of seven books Voigt published between 1981 and 1989. The immediate sequel, Dicey’s Song, would earn Voigt the highest honor for YA literature, the Newbery Award and its immediate follow-up A Solitary Blue, was a runner-up for the same award.
It is in Homecoming that readers are introduced to the Tillerman family after which the cycle of novels is named. The narrative kicks off with the mother of Dicey Tillerman and her siblings abandoning them at a mall and proceeds to tell the story of her subsequent lapse into mental illness as Dicey works to step into her mother’s caretaker role and keep the family together against overwhelming odds. This initial entry in the Tillerman Cycle introduces most of the main characters that will pop up in the rest of the books while making references to others who will take on a more significant presence in later books in the series.
Although the intensity of this story which subsequently produced a rich vein of sequels would seem to indicate a strongly autobiographical element, Voigt’s actual home life and childhood almost stands in direct opposition to that of the Tillerman siblings. The author’s background featuring a certain level of wealth and privilege overseen by both parents instead of a broken and dysfunctional family stands in stark contrast to everything that befalls the Tillerman family over the course of the entire cycle. Instead, the novel stands completely apart from autobiography as a work of imagination: Voigt was moved to create Homecoming by the simple act of witnessing a similar situation of children waiting in a car as she began to wonder what their story might be if their mother never returned.
In 1996, a made-for-television film was adapted from the novel which aired on Showtime The film starred Anne Bancroft as the matriarch of the Tillerman clan, Abigail, and introduced Kimberlee Peterson in her first major role as Dicey. The screenwriters who adapted Voight’s novel received a nomination from the Writers Guild of America.
