Jack (Oprah's Book Club)
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3.3 • 52 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"Robinson’s slow prose is the star here, and narrator Adam Verner gives great depth of emotion to Jack’s raw suffering and ethical dilemmas...Come for the love story; stay for a couple who learn to find the beauty in broken humanity, and what grace can look like for those who love each other." -- Booklist
This program includes a bonus conversation with the author.
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.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Jack Boughton, a white preacher’s son from Iowa, has fallen in love with Della Miles, a black schoolteacher living in segregated, post–World War II St. Louis. Though their affair begins with all the giddiness of a new crush, soon the harsh realities of an interracial relationship in the Jim Crow era become undeniable. Part of Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer-winning Gilead series, Jack is a tragic love story that stands beautifully on its own, though fans of the previous books will relish the chance to dive this deep into fascinating characters they’ve met before. Narrator Adam Verner’s subtle, intimate delivery made us feel like a fly on the wall for Jack and Della’s achingly emotional story, drawing us into the realities of a troubled time in American history that still reverberates throughout our culture today. The characters in this sweeping novel may be fictional, but the world they live in—and the journey they take us on as a listener—is intensely real.
Customer Reviews
Twist on Black Lives Matter
A dignified unmarried Black English teacher from the South encounters a White man penniless and fresh out of prison enters a beautiful cemetery in 1950s where he intends to sleep for the night. But a Black woman also comes to cool off near the cemetery pond. Will he rob or harm her?
He sees himself as Unredeemable. Her calm way draws him out then and their relationship continues. She knows he might rob or do worse. This kind of a relationship cannot end well or can it? You’ll find out.