I Knew You’d Come
A novel of homecoming and family
A Virgil Brooks Novel
Literary fiction · Novel
I Knew You’d Come
Some journeys home take longer than others.
Four years after missing his father’s funeral, an army veteran living in Bangkok flies home to Colorado for Christmas. His mother’s phone is disconnected, the family house belongs to strangers, and the people he left behind may be his only way to find her.
About the novel
The long way home.
Four years ago, Tom Kobe missed his father’s funeral. He has spent every year since in Bangkok, telling himself why.
This Christmas, he is going home.
But the Colorado he returns to has moved on without him. His mother’s phone has been disconnected. The family house belongs to strangers. The people who might know where Ruth has gone each carry their own account of why he stayed away, and none of them expected to see him again: his sister Claire, his brother Marcus, and Laurel, whose life went on when he left.
As snow settles over the town and the hours to Christmas run down, Tom goes from door to door toward the one person he has never stopped owing an apology. When his mother finally opens the door, she does not look surprised.
Spare, tender and quietly devastating, I Knew You’d Come is a novel about leaving, returning, and the love that keeps a light on for both.
At its heart
- 01Homecoming
- 02Family estrangement
- 03Forgiveness