Phillip Martin is a contrast to the flinty determined heroes of Catherine Carmier (1964) and Of Love and Dust (1967), even though he is a civic leader.

His young assistant, Jonathan, is more typical of these feisty, earlier male characters. Gaines mentions in an interview the difficulty of writing In My Father's House, commenting that it took him much longer to write than his other books. There is also a contrast between the structure of this book and earlier ones, owing perhaps to his daring exploration of character. In the other books where characters are thwarted or defeated by external forces, a simple shooting often resolves the plot, as in Catherine Carmier or Of Love and Dust, or a death, as in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Here the ending is more tentative, as if to emphasize the theme of the ongoing struggle. The themes of the...