Marilynne Robinson

In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowa preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition. Reverend Ames tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his best friend's wayward...

Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack--the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty years--comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain.

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...

Since the 1981 publication of Marilynne Robinson's novel, Housekeeping, she has built a sterling reputation not only as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, but also as a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. In this new collection she returns to the themes which have preoccupied her work: the role of faith in modern life, the inadequacy of fact, and the contradictions inherent in human nature. Clear-eyed and forceful as ever, Robinson demonstrates...

A new essay collection assesses today's political climate and the mysteries of faith, from the influence of intellectual minds on society's political consciousness to the way that beauty informs and disciplines daily life.

Edna Pontellier has everything that a woman and mother should want - two wonderful sons, a husband, and good financial fortune. But still, she feels like something may be missing. While vacationing with her family, she meets a young man who shows affection and opens her mind to adventure and freedom. Edna’s desire for freedom and independence begins to fester in her heart, and she finds that she is increasingly disenchanted with the responsibilities...

In celebration of Brown University's 250th anniversary, fifty remarkable, prizewinning writers and artists who went to Brown provide unique stories-many published for the first time-about their adventures on College Hill. Funny, poignant, subversive, and nostalgic, the essays, comics, and poems in this collection paint a vivid picture of college life, from the 1950s to the present, at one of America's most interesting universities.