'Musically The Homecoming might be the least interesting record in this book, nothing more than a simple guitar srum and Hall's muted, conversational voice. But the story that voice is telling is perfectly crafted. A country star arrives at his father's house after long absence. He's been gone so long that he isn't aware that his Dad now has a phone; he's so alienated from his former life that he managed to miss his mother's funeral.
Hall's elliptical exposition reveals a performer oscillating between boastful egotism and downplaying his life-style, a reaction intensified by his father's hostility to his profession. More skillfully written than almost any other effort at depicting the everyday - Hall even gets to the banalities about gravestones and illness that are supposed to release and in fact only intensify familial tensions. Few page writers can claim as much.'
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