Despite his cruelty, women are attracted to Willy Jack and are wiling to take care of him.What do you make of Novalee's seemingly irrational fears? What role do superstitions play in the lives of even the most rational of us? Are there any other patterns or cycles you recognize in the novel?

Novalee's superstition about the number seven intensifies after the birth of her daughter.

Do you think this is a strength or a weakness of the novel? Do you think this is a believable portrayal of teenage motherhood? Is it possible that lacking a loving mother herself she would be such a good mother? Both Novalee and Lexie defy our stereotypes of poor, single mothers. Novalee, however, seems to be remarkably maternal and responsible in her parental role.

In the beginning of the novel, Novalee is a poor, uneducated teenage mother whose own mother abandoned her at a young age.

How influenced are we all by portrayals of home and home life in the media, movies, and on television? Would you characterize home as a place, a family, a state of mind, or, as Sister Husband says, a place 'where your history begins?' As a homeless person longing for a home, Novalee's image of home is heavily influenced by the images she sees in magazines.

The theme of 'home' runs throughout this novel.

And it will make you laugh and cry.every step of the way. It will make you believe in the strength of friendship, the goodness of down-to-earth people, and the healing power of love. Where the Heart Is puts a human face on the look-alike trailer parks and malls of America's small towns. Through all the touching and surprising adventures that lie ahead, she's going in the right direction. Novalee may be homeless and jobless, living secretly in a Wal-Mart, but she's beginning to believe she may have a future. and Forney Hull, the eccentric town librarian who hides his secrets - and his feelings - behind his world of books. Moses Whitecotton, the wise, soft-spoken, elderly black photographer eager to teach Novalee all he knows. Suddenly, with all those sevens staring her in the face, she is forced to accept the scary truth: her no-good boyfriend Willy Jack Pickens has left her with empty pockets and empty dreams.īut Novalee is about to discover treasures hidden in Sequoyah - a group of disparate and deeply caring people, among them blue-haired Sister Thelma Husband, who hands out advice and photocopied books of the Bible. An hour ago, she was on her way from Tennessee to a new life in Bakersfield, California. She's seventeen, seven months pregnant, thirty-seven pounds overweight - and now she finds herself stranded at a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, holding just $7.77 in change.

Novalee Nation has always been unlucky with sevens.

Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts