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Published Mar 2012
224 pages
Genre: Essays
Publication Information
Since the 1981 publication of Marilynne Robinson's novel, Housekeeping - a stunning debut that was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize - 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. Her compelling and demanding collection The Death of Adam - in which she reflected on her Presbyterian upbringing, investigated the roots of Midwestern abolitionism, and mounted a memorable defense of Calvinism - is respected as a classic of the genre, praised by Doris Lessing as "a useful antidote to the increasingly crude and slogan-loving culture we inhabit."
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, the contradictions inherent in human nature. Clear-eyed and forceful as ever, Robinson demonstrates once again why she is regarded as a modern rhetorical master.
"Starred Review. [A] series of tightly developed essays, some personal but mostly more general, on the Big Themes: social fragmentation in modern America, human frailty, faith." - Publishers Weekly
"Articulate and learned descriptions and defenses of the author's Christian faith." - Kirkus Reviews
"Here Robinson revisits favorite themes, considering the impoverishment of consumer culture, the role of faith, and the complexities of human nature. For all your smart readers." - Library Journal
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Alec Soth / Magnum Photos
Marilynne Robinson is the author of Gilead, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award; Home (2008), winner of the Orange Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Lila (2014), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Jack (2020), a New York Times bestseller. Her first novel, Housekeeping (1980), won the PEN/Hemingway Award. Robinson's nonfiction books include The Givenness of Things (2015), When I Was a Child I Read Books (2012), Absence of Mind (2010), The Death of Adam (1998), and Mother Country (1989). She is the recipient of a 2012 National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama, for "her grace and intelligence in writing." Robinson lives in California.
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