Why You Should Read Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson is an American author whose books express her humane theism with sympathy and imagination. Her four novels are Housekeeping (1980), Gilead (2004), Home (2008), and Lila (2014). Gilead was awarded the 2005 Pulitzer prize, and Home the 2009 UK Orange prize for fiction. Of these, Gilead, Home, and Lila are complementary, in that they describe the same group of people in two families from the perspectives of three different members of that group. The people are ordinary, but the description and narratives are extraordinary. Each person shines with clarity, and the progress of their lives is described in powerful detail. Because of the place and time in which they live, their lives could be described as quiet, but the narratives are sustained by intensity of observation and reflection. Simone Weil commented that in fiction evil people are interesting, and good people are boring, whereas in real life, good people are interesting and evil people are boring. Marilynne Robinson has the extraordinary gift of evoking good people as interesting in her fiction. And it is her humane theism which enriches her writing, as does her perceptive sympathy for the lives of ordinary people. She shows how people are shaped by early experiences and background, and how people grapple with the givens of their lives.