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Jack by Marilynne Robinson

I first read Gilead — the first of Marilynne Robinsons’s eponymous four-part series back in college — when I was working at a 7/11 one summer. I don’t remember how I heard about the book, or even if I bought it or borrowed it from the library. But I do remember how immediately taken I was with the ruminations of the ailing John Ames, a pastor in 1950s Iowa, writing a letter to his young son about life and faith and occasionally fretting over Jack Boughton, the wayward son of his best friend.

In Jack, Robinson’s latest book, we finally see things from Jack’s point of view. Without the context of the previous three books, it might take a moment to figure out who Jack is. He lives in a boarding house in St. Louis in the ’50s, but when the book begins we know no names. We’re only in the middle of a heated conversation between two people — then later they meet again in the cemetery. Their conversation turns to poetry, to theater, to predestination and Hell. I’ll admit it took me a while to get through this part of the book. But then we have some movement and just like that again, I’m in Robinson’s thrall again as she depicts Jack’s profound loneliness, his desire and reluctance to connect— and then the wonder that is falling in love with Della, a Black school teacher. Their love is doomed from the start because of anti-miscegenation laws and Jack’s intractable draw towards mischief. Robinson does a good job subtly demonstrating the stakes. The result is a novel that is heartbreaking, but beautiful meditation on undeserved grace. Get your copy. — Tomi Obaro

This Week in Virtual Book Events:

Sept. 20-26

TODAY: Sunday, Sept. 20

Kim Johnson (This Is My America) and Ibi Zoboi (Punching the Air) discuss their new books — hosted by Powell's, 2 p.m. PT, more info.

Monday, Sept. 21

Ayad Akhtar discusses Homeland Elegies with Maria Semple — hosted by Elliott Bay Book Company, 6 p.m. PT, more info.

Jared Yates Sexton discusses American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People — hosted by Midtown Scholar Bookstore, 7 p.m. ET, more info.

Tuesday, Sept. 22

Tiffany D. Jackson discusses Grown with Laurie Halse Anderson — hosted by Anderson's Bookshops, 7 p.m. CT, more info.

Helen Macdonald discusses Vesper Flights with Jeff VanderMeer — hosted by McNally Jackson, 7 p.m. ET, more info.

Wednesday, Sept. 23

Alex Temblador, author of Secrets of the Casa Rosada, moderates a panel on "the rise of the young adult novel" with Hafsah Faizal (We Hunt the Flame), Samantha Mabry (Tigers, Not Daughters), and C. Michael Morrison (Hannah Goodheart and the Guardian of Time) — hosted by Interabang Books, 6 p.m. CT, more info.

Deesha Philyaw discusses her new story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies with Nafissa Thompson-Spires — hosted by Malaprop's, 6 p.m. ET, more info.

Thursday, Sept. 24

Ibi Zoboi (Punching the Air), Lilliam Rivera (Never Look Back), Zoraida Córdova (Wayward Witch), and Mark Oshiro (Each of Us a Desert) discuss Latinx young adult literature and culture, moderated by Adriana Herrera — hosted by Bloomsbury USA, 7:30 p.m. ET, more info.

Anne Helen Petersen discusses Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, Bim Adewunmi, Scaachi Koul, and Caroline Moss — hosted by Books Are Magic, 7 p.m. ET, more info.

Friday, Sept. 25

Saturday, Sept. 26

And many more! Check out the full list here.

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