Synopses & Reviews
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
NAMED A BEST OF THE YEAR BY: NPR, TIME, ESQUIRE, THE GUARDIAN, LIT HUB, ELECTRIC LITERATURE, THE FINANCIAL TIMES, THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY.
"With the sublime JACK, Marilynne Robinson] resumes and deepens her quest, extending it to the contemplation of race... There is richness and depth at every turn." O, the Oprah Magazine
Marilynne Robinson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, returns to the world of Gilead with Jack, the latest novel in one of the great works of contemporary American fiction
Marilynne Robinson's mythical world of Gilead, Iowa — the setting of her novels Gilead, Home, and Lila, and now Jack — and its beloved characters have illuminated and interrogated the complexities of American history, the power of our emotions, and the wonders of a sacred world. Jack is Robinson's fourth novel in this now-classic series. In it, Robinson tells the story of John Ames Boughton, the prodigal son of Gilead's Presbyterian minister, and his romance with Della Miles, a high school teacher who is also the child of a preacher. Their deeply felt, tormented, star-crossed interracial romance resonates with all the paradoxes of American life, then and now.
Robinson's Gilead novels, which have won one Pulitzer Prize and two National Book Critics Circle Awards, are a vital contribution to contemporary American literature and a revelation of our national character and humanity.
Review
"Jack is the fourth novel in Robinson's Gilead series, an intergenerational saga of race, religion, family, and forgiveness centered on a small Iowa town. But it is not accurate to call it a sequel or a prequel. Rather, this book and the others — Gilead, Home, and Lila — are more like the Gospels, telling the same story four different ways." Casey Cep, The New Yorker
Review
"For Marilynne Robinson's devotees, John Ames Boughton, the titular Jack of the fourth volume of her award-winning Gilead novels, is one of the most eagerly awaited literary figures since Godot... Robinson is acclaimed for her numinous accounts of faith, forgiveness and hope, but read in this electrifying year of national crisis, the Gilead books are unified as well by her unsparing indictment of the American history of racism and inequality, and Christianity's uneven will to fight them... I am looking forward to a fifth volume that will fill in their saga, and I hope it will be called Della." Elaine Showalter, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Can love save a man from perdition? That question, braided with romance and religion, is at the heart of Marilynne Robinson's new novel...Robinson cradles [Jack's] love for Della with the tenderness of a gracious creator." Ron Charles, The Washington Post
About the Author
Marilynne Robinson is the author of the novels Lila, Home, Gilead (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), and Housekeeping, and the nonfiction books, When I Was a Child I Read Books, Mother Country, The Death of Adam, and Absence of Mind. She teaches at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop