A New York Times bestsellerNamed a Best Book of 2020 by the Australian Book Review, AV Club, Books-a-Million, Electric Literature, Esquire, the Financial Times, Good Housekeeping (UK), The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, Literary Hub, the New Statesman, the New York Public Library, NPR, the Star Tribune, and TIMEMarilynne Robinson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, returns … Tribune, and TIME
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.
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I read Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead when it came out in 2004. A few years later I read it again with a church book club, and four years again I read it a third time for a book club.
It is a gorgeous,profound novel written as a letter by an elderly preacher to his young son. The narrator, John Ames, is conflicted about his best friend’s ne’er-do-well son, Jack. Jack has returned to Gilead to visit his ailing father. His presence is a torment to John Ames who fears his young wife will be drawn to Jack. Jack left town after impregnating a girl, his abandonment of the child causing a rift. When Jack finally tells John Ames he has a colored wife and child, he gives Jack the blessing of forgiveness he has long sought.
Robinson has revisited Gilead in Home and Lila, and now in a fourth volume, Jack. I could not resist reading Jack’s story.
The novel begins shortly after Jack is released from prison. He has been a bum, a drunk, homeless. There is still an air about him of respectability, learned from being the son of a Presbyterian minister. People call him Professor. They appreciate his playing hymns on the piano.
Jack is in a black suit when he assists a young colored teacher who has dropped her papers in the rain, and she believes him to be a minister and invites him into her home. From this a relationship begins, one that is not only socially unacceptable but against the law.
Jack is profoundly aware of his sinfulness. His birth nearly killed his mother. His boyish antics, unrelenting unbelief, and teenage wildness embarrassed his preacher father. The final straw was impregnating a young woman and not taking responsibility for their child who later dies. His legacy of harming those around him weighs heavily.
“And everything is vulnerable to harm, one way or another Everybody is vulnerable. It’s kind of horrible when you think about it. All that breakage, without so much as an intention behind it half the time. All that tantalizing fragility.”~from Jack by Marilynne Robinson
This young woman who treats him so respectfully draws him. He has lied to her by not correcting her mistake; already his harm has begun. But Jack can’t forget her.
He had seen kindness weary before.
~from Jack by Marilynne Robinson
Jack and Della meet again and talk poetry and more. He is falling in love. The daughter of a minister, Della is a college educated teacher, and has a respectable family who loves her. They can have no future in this world.
…it was taking her a long time to give up on him.
~from Jack by Marilynne Robinson
Jack feels shame and dread and grief. Just by existing he is destroying Della’s career and alienating her from her family. Her freedom and even her life is in peril if they are caught. Jack calls himself the Prince of Darkness. His “battered, atheist soul” has regrets, but he cannot repent. He jokes that he has lived a life of ‘prevenient death,’ a play on prevenient grace which believes all can grasp the grace already offered.
Jack isn’t preying on Della. She has pursued him. Like God, she can look beyond the outer appearance and the social appraisement to the inner man. She sees his soul.
But once in a lifetime, maybe, you look at a stranger and you see a soul, a glorious presence out of place in the world…You’ve seen the muster–you’ve seen what life is all about. What it’s for.
~from Jack by Marilynne Robinson
Jack has stolen the grandest thing by far–he has stolen Della. Yet a wise man has told him that if God puts some happiness in your way, you should take it. Even the greatest sinner can find a moment of grace.
Jack is one of the great characters in literature, a portrait of a sinner who struggles with his unbelief and the wreckage he has brought. His love story goes to the heart of America’s original sin, slavery and segregation that treated people of color as less than human.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
Marilynne Robinson has written an exquisite work on the nature of faith and relationships and the devotion we place toward God ,ourself and others .When a couple different in many aspects attempts to solidify their relationship barriers and hostilities are thrown before them . The author takes us on a journey illustrating their attempt to hold on to the love they have for one another.The writer explains We have one thing in common we are not as we appear . You don’t feel like part of the world anymore . Maybe you are like most people who ignore their lives so they can function .You are pure You don’t do that . This purity connects the couple.The writer tells us There is nothing to be said about this connection , It is a holy soul .And a miracle when you recognize it ! This knowledge and trust allows love to prevail. One can ask themselves is this lovely grace found in their relationships ?
Book #4 in the Gilead series provides the backstory for the prodigal Jack Boughton, and to a certain extent, for the unimpeachable Della Miles. You need not have read the rest of the Gilead books to enjoy this novel, although “Home” may be one you will want to read afterward.
Set in St. Louis sometime after World War II, this book tells the story of Jack’s and Della’s unlikely and then-illegal relationship. Jack is a liar, a drunk, a thief, and a former convict, the white, reprobate son of a Presbyterian minister. Della is a successful, respected teacher, the black, perfect daughter of a Methodist bishop. Despite miscegenation laws, societal hostility, and the disapproval of Della’s family, employer, and neighbors, Jack and Della fall in love.
The book showcases the author’s famously beautiful writing and religious themes. Told from Jack’s POV, the book is most successful when it delves into the losses and transgressions that have driven Jack to exile himself to the fringes of society. Jack is a great, complex character, and this book provides insight into how he will ultimately appear and act in “Home.” Despite the overall seriousness of the subject and tone, it is sometimes very funny, as when Jack tries to adopt a cat and when he reflects on difficulties he had in prison: “From time to time there would be trouble – he was accused of cheating at cards because he was cheating at cards.”
The book is less successful in exploring Della’s character. It’s never quite clear what Della sees in Jack, the self-described “old white bum.” Della works symbolically to illustrate grace, but it would have made the book even richer to see her more as a multi-faceted person instead of an ideal.
Many thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.