“Prodigals and Preachers”: me on Marilynne Robinson

at Acculturated:

This is the halfway point for my series of posts on great novels about marriage, and with this third installment I think I see some intertwined themes emerging. All three of the books so far—Kristin Lavransdatter, How to Be Good, and now Marilynne Robinson’s generational Iowa epic-in-miniature Gilead—are also stories about being sorry, and trying to be better, and wondering how much any person can ever really change.

more; keep in mind that all of these posts necessarily oversimplify their subjects! I don’t really think I did Gilead justice here, but you absolutely should read it. You have to get acclimated to the narrator’s voice–he’s a fairly sententious old man–but it’s really a lovely and powerful book.