Jack
An Oprah's Book Club Pick
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
'[Her work] defines universal truths about what it means to be human' Barack Obama
'Marilynne Robinson is one of the greatest writers of our time' Sunday Times
'Jack is the fourth in Robinson's luminous, profound Gilead series and perhaps the best yet' Observer
Marilynne Robinson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the American National Humanities Medal, returns to the world of Gilead with Jack, the final in one of the great works of contemporary American fiction.
Jack tells the story of John Ames Boughton, the loved and grieved-over prodigal son of a Presbyterian minister in Gilead, Iowa, a drunkard and a ne'er-do-well. In segregated St. Louis sometime after World War II, Jack falls in love with Della Miles, an African-American high school teacher, also a preacher's child, with a discriminating mind, a generous spirit and an independent will. Their fraught, beautiful story is one of Robinson's greatest achievements.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Sometimes the best way to understand history is to experience it yourself—through a heartbreaking and painstakingly researched novel like this one. Iowa preacher’s son Jack Boughton—who first appeared in Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Gilead—has fallen in love with Della Miles, a Black schoolteacher living in segregated, post–World War II St. Louis. Though Jack and Della’s clandestine affair begins with all the giddiness of a new crush, the harsh realities of an interracial relationship in the Jim Crow era quickly come crashing in. Jack is a powerful love story that stands beautifully on its own, although fans of the previous Gilead novels will relish the chance to dive more deeply into fascinating characters they’ve met before. The couple at the centre of this sweeping novel may be fictional, but the world they live in feels intensely real, pulling us into the realities of a terrible historical period that still reverberates throughout American culture and beyond.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Robinson's stellar, revelatory fourth entry in her Gilead cycle (after Lila) focuses on Jack Boughton, the prodigal son of a Gilead, Iowa, minister, and the beginnings of his romance with Della Miles before his 1957 return to Gilead in Home. Jack, who disparagingly styles himself "the Prince of Darkness," finds his life spiraling out of control in St. Louis, where, after dodging the draft during WWII, he spends several years increasingly prone to bouts of heavy drinking, petty theft, and vagrancy. His tailspin is interrupted when he meets Della Miles, an English teacher from a prominent Black family in Memphis. Despite a disastrous first date, the details of which are hinted at in the beginning, and over the numerous objections of Della's family and white strangers, Jack and Della fall in love, bound by a natural intimacy and mutual love of poetry. Robinson's masterly prose and musings on faith are on display as usual, and the dialogue is keen and indelible. ("Once in a lifetime, maybe, you look at a stranger and you see a soul, a glorious presence out of place in the world. And if you love God, every choice is made for you," Della tells Jack.) This is a beautiful, superbly crafted meditation on the redemption and transcendence that love affords.
