Family and Home Theme Analysis

In A Complicated Kindness, Nomi, a Mennonite teenager, grapples with the collapse of her home life after her mother and sister leave the family. Over the course of the novel, the physical breakdown of Nomi’s house mirrors the dissolution of her family and the subsequent decline of her own mental health. At first Nomi confronts these challenges by preserving as much of her previous life as possible, even if doing so means ignoring uncomfortable realities. However, it’s only at the end of the novel, as she sells the house and prepares to leave town completely alone, that Nomi regains her mental clarity and her confidence that she will one day be reunited with her family. Ultimately, Nomi learns that familial unity depends on acceptance, rather than sharing a home or adhering to a set of predetermined norms.

In Nomi’s childhood recollections, her house is charming and tidy, and her family is relatively happy and committed to the Mennonite way of life. Nomi often dwells fondly on household scenes like her mother Trudie cooking pancakes in the kitchen or playing cards in the living room. She also gives evocative descriptions of her father Ray’s devotion to caring for the house, for example describing his dedicated work in the garden. In this sense, the house represents the family’s unity as well as their commitment to their town’s way of life. By investing so much energy in their physical surroundings, Nomi’s parents signal their rootedness in Mennonite culture and norms, such as hard work and domesticity.

In the wake of Tash and Trudie’s disappearances, however, the house rapidly deteriorates, mirroring both the family’s dissolution and Nomi’s growing disillusionment with Mennonite culture. At one point an anonymous person throws a brick through the window; later on, a section of the roof collapses without warning. Neither Nomi nor Ray takes action to fix these problems, seeming content to live in increasingly dilapidated surroundings. Even more troublingly, Ray gradually sells off the family’s furniture, getting rid of even basic appliances like the refrigerator and leaving the house eerily empty. These developments mirror Ray’s grief: he can’t stand to live among constant reminders of his former happiness, so he gradually dismantles them. They also parallel Nomi’s declining mental health: too apathetic to take action about her surroundings, she resorts to skipping school and doing drugs.

The house also represents the family’s growing disengagement with their community. When the minister, The Mouth, visits the Nickels’ house, he comments disapprovingly on its shabby state, which he views as lazy and even sinful. His comments are harsh and unsympathetic, but he does point out that even Ray, the family’s staunchest believer, no longer feels compelled to uphold Mennonite principles.

For much of the novel, Nomi dreams of bringing her family back together within its former domestic environment, but only once she learns to let go of her former life does she become confident that she really will reunite with her family someday. In contrast to the long and evocative descriptions she gives of her family’s erstwhile happiness, Nomi reports on her house’s decline brusquely and apathetically, implicitly demonstrating her unwillingness to acknowledge the breakdown that has occurred. By cooking meals—however abysmal—for her father and imagining her sister’s presence during difficult moments, she attempts to ignore Tash and Trudie’s actual absence and maintain the old patterns of her life.

Just as she downplays her physical home’s problems, Nomi also withholds information about the breakdown of her family. For much of the novel, she seems to believe that Trudie or Tash might reappear at any moment and take up their old lives. Only at the novel’s end does she reveal that Tash ran away with a boyfriend and Trudie was excommunicated for adultery, both actions that prevent them from living within the Mennonite community again.

In a twist at the end of the novel, Ray—who often seems even more apathetic and adrift than his daughter—surprises Nomi by leaving home himself and instructing her to sell the house and do the same. While Nomi is now more alone than ever before, she also regains the clarity of mind to build a new life, something she’s lacked since her mother’s departure. What’s more, her father’s encouraging letter leaves her confident they’ll soon be reunited. Ultimately it’s Nomi’s departure from her home—not her mother or sister’s return—that reawakens her sense of unity with her family.

In the novel’s last paragraph, Nomi poignantly remembers the days of falling asleep “listening to the voices of my sister and mother talking…and the sounds of my dad poking around in the yard.” This evocative sketch, centered in the home, demonstrates Nomi’s strong ties to her family and the role of her house in representing that bond. Yet Nomi is also looking towards the future, wondering “who [she]’ll become” when she leaves town. It’s only by acknowledging that she must move onward that Nomi can enjoy her memories and feel confident in her family’s unity, and so the novel argues that accepting change within a family is actually the best way to keep it strong.