Marilynne Robinson

WINNER OF THE 2005 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 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 Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He “preached men into the Civil War,” then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle. Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father—an ardent pacifist—and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend’s wayward son. Gilead is the long-hoped-for second novel by one of our finest writers, a hymn of praise and lamentation to the God-haunted existence that Reverend Ames loves passionately, and from which he will soon part.

In the tradition of nineteenth-century novelists who turned to the essay, Marilynne Robinson offers an authoritative approach to refining the ideas our culture has handed down to us. Whether considering how the McGuffey readers were inspired by midwestern abolitionists; how creationism, "long owned by the Religious Right," has spurred on contemporary Darwinism; or how John Calvin, who was a Frenchman in Geneva, points to America's continental origins, Robinson writes with great conviction.

"Britain, the welfare state and nuclear pollution"--Jacket.

Marilynne Robinson's first novel.

In this new collection of incisive essays, Robinson returns to the themes which have preoccupied her work: the role of faith in modern life, the inadequacy of fact, the contradictions inherent in human nature.

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.

The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating technologies for material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope. In The Givenness of Things, Marilynne Robinson delivers an impassioned critique of our contemporary society while arguing that reverence must be given to who we are and what we are: creatures of singular interest and value, despite our errors and depredations. Robinson has plumbed the depths of the human spirit in her award-winning novels, and in her new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern predicament and the mysteries of faith. These seventeen essays examine the ideas that have inspired and provoked one of our finest writers throughout her life. Whether she is investigating how the work of the great thinkers of the past--Calvin, Locke, Bonhoeffer, and Shakespeare--can infuse our lives, or calling attention to the rise of the self-declared élite in American religious and political life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on display. Exquisite and bold, this is a call for us to find wisdom and guidance in our cultural heritage, and to offer grace to one another.--Adapted from book jacket.

This is the most comprehensive biography of John F. Kennedy ever undertaken. It centers on the his relationship to his awesome and powerful family- dominated by the one man in the United States both determined to place a son in the White House and capable of doing it. Combining vivid personal glimpses with insights into the political currents of the times, the author renders in fascinating and fully human terms Jack Kennedy's lifelong struggle to live up to his father's unbending expectations. There is much to this book that is new: It tells for the first time the full story of the grave illness that plagued Kennedy all his life, and of his desperate fight to overcome and then to conceal it. It brings to light the more shadowy of his celebrated affairs: the love for the suspected "Nazi agent" that resulted in his hurried transfer to the South Pacific during World War II, from which he returned a hero. It reveals the truth about his controversial friendship with Senator Joe McCarthy and it explores his peculiar relationship with Richard Nixon, whom he regarded as a rival but never an enemy. It also reconstructs the political machinations that led to Kennedy's election to the House and then to the Senate, and illuminates his complex relationship with the woman who was to become more famous as his widow than she was as his wife. -- Publisher description.