I see why Robinson has been compared to the great Sherwood Anderson: She chronicles the lives of small people in a minor American city in the middle of nowhere - hence, the people who really make up America - , and she gives them dignity and complexity, thus elevating them to heroes with dramatic destinies. Every part of her "Gilead" series (Gilead being the name of the aforementioned small town in the Midwest) focuses on different inhabitants, so the literary project develops into a panoroma of American life. In this fourth part, Robinson tells the love story between the title-giving Jack, son of a priesterman (of course) and vagabond at heart, and Della, a Black teacher - a scandalous affair in the 1950's, when the novel is set.

While the book ponders love, grace, and American history, the language always remains calm, held back and accessible, with strong reliance on oral traditions. Della represents the serious, hard-working middle class that supports and educates the community (which underlines the absurdity of segregationist America), while Jack comes from a respected background, but intentionally gave up on the values of small-town America in order to experience what lies outside this safe, known world. Religious motifs and questions of morality play an important role, but are presented and discussed in an elegant way.

So as you see, there is not much to say against this kind of literature - alas, it's just not to my taste, which is of course a statement about me, not about the book. I like more experimental, punchier, louder literature - but that's exactly what Robinson does not aim to do, so more power to her, this woman knows her craft.

Not as great as her previous novels, but still, Marilynne's writing is so beautiful, so poetic, I'll still recommend any of her books to a wide range of readers.

“I’m a simple man who was brought up by a complicated man. So I have mannerisms and so on. Vocabulary. People can be misled.”

This was my second effort with Jack. I love the Gilead series and was so excited to read a story that focused solely on Jack, who is one of the most complicated and tragic characters in American literature. I had a really hard time getting into this in print, but I jumped at the opportunity for the audio version when I saw there was no wait on Libby.

This tells how Jack and Della’s relationship began. Biracial marriages were illegal back then and it was dangerous for them to even be together. I’m still not sure why Della chose to “marry” him nor do I understand Jack’s psyche. If anything, I’m even more impatient with him than I was before.

This book is full of beautiful sentences and staggering thoughts, but I found it much slower and harder to sink into than the first three in the series. Because of this, I’m only giving it 3 stars. But if anyone was disappointed in the print version, I’d encourage you to try the audio version – the narrator is excellent and sometimes it helps to simply be told a story.

When you read anything by Marilynne Robinson you know you are reading something masterful. Her writing is in a class by itself and surely you will find evidence of that in her most recent offering, Jack.
A character driven book, this did drag at the beginning for me. It is helpful to be familiar with her Gilead series and the character Jack, of course. Follow this to the end and you will not be sorry.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this beautiful ARC of Jack by Marilynne Robinson.

I adore Robinson - she's the Faulkner of this generation. This story was a wonderful way to fill out the stories in the rest of her series. I had a little toruble with the ebook download so ultimately ended up reading it in a print copy that I purchased.

I’m judging the L.A. Times 2021 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got me to read on even though it was among 296 other books I’m charged to read.

I’ve had a difficult time maintaining focus when I read lately. Robinson’s dialogue is a good anecdote for that… but then again these quiet observations the stillness in her fiction is what I so admire.

“His feet, where they showed beyond his trouser cuffs, had a dim pallor even in all the dark. They looked very naked, not quite his and startlingly his. Sometimes he thought of the naked man who lived in his clothes, that bare, forked animal. He had dreamed a thousand times that he was somewhere public, wearing less than decency allowed. That was the feeling. Utter vulnerability. Then again, the cold of the grass was sharp and pleasuring, like river water.”

I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book. I enjoyed this book though it was a bit long in the middle.

And so begins my love affair with Ms. Robinson

JACK
Marilynne Robinson
At about the halfway point, you're there. All-in. But the beginning of the book is a bit slow. It's a hugely romantic book, almost old-fashioned. The writing has a charming quality to it. Rather than wow you or impress you, Robinson comes in courting you. I can't believe I waited this long to pick it up.

I'm not sure if it will be the characters or the writing. Maybe it'll be a line of dialogue that ill remember. There's a lot of memorable pieces to the book. The aspect that stands out to me is the world.

Hang with me here.

JACK is set sometime after World War 2, during a time of great segregation and rules that governed who we could and could not fall in love with. Robinson uses this excruciating time in history as a backdrop, telling the love story of Della and Jack.

It's not your typical love story. Each of the characters is deeply flawed, struck by religious constructs, and their relationship together equals more than any of the individual characters on their own.

This is my very first Gilead novel, and I must say that I regret not starting at the beginning. It took me a bit of time to warm up to Jack, and I believe that would not have been the case if I had been introduced to him before. Della, to me, was a bit mousey. She is built this way, a minister's daughter, a teacher by profession, avid poetry lover who falls in love with men she creates romantic notions about.

All in all, JACK is dreamy yet grounded, a pure delight!
Thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, and #netgalley for this gifted copy!

If you let this one get by you as I did, don't let that stop you from picking it up today!
Out Now
4.5 Stars
Rounded up!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#backlistimissed
#outnow
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#books
#summerreading
#charming
#marilynnerobinson
#jack
#fiction
#availablenow
#throwbackthursday
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#thankyou
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#jackanddella

This is as close to a romance book as I like to get.

I thought I wouldn't have time to read and review this-- but glad I di. She's a terrific writer and this book is well worth anyone's reading time.

O mais recente título daquela que é, até agora, a tetralogia Gilead de Marilynne Robinson.

Jack é uma magnífica personagem, que cresceu como o rebelde filho de um pastor cujas acções o levaram a um percurso de vida de martirização, culpa, vergonha e redenção. Vive como mendigo e alcoólico, porque não se consegue perdoar.

Isola-se da família (e de todos), como forma de evitar danos sobre terceiros, já que as suas acções acabam sempre a destruir tudo em que toca.

É assim que se sente em relação a Delia, uma jovem professora negra (no tempo de Jim Crow), quando de apaixona por ela. O seu amor, só pode trazer a esta jovem a vergonha (nunca poderiam casar) e ostracismo por parte da sua comunidade, por se aliar a um branco.

O livro é um fantástico retrato psicológico, entre memórias, diálogos interiores com cenários reais e até imaginários (se...eu faria...).

Marilynne Robinson é leitura obrigatória

A fine-meshed character study, leavened by wit and learning. Did I find it a bit too interior, a bit repetitive? Yes, but Robinson is a fine and exceptional writer and the essential dilemma of the book was an intriguing one.

Those who love the Gilead novels will not be disappointed in this newest addition. Marilyn Robinson is certainly a force .

A beautiful story that’s quiet and thoughtful. Robinson’s prose is always so lovely. These are characters that you want to root for and the biracial relationship is so timely in our world right now.

Marilynne Robinson created the Boughton and Ames families of Gilead, Iowa in her 2004 Gilead. The Gilead books are set in the 1950s, with retrospect ranging back to the Civil War, in which Ames's abolitionist grandfather served. Robinson's three subsequent novels — Home, Lila, and, most recently, Jack, all as transcendently lovely as the first — return to Gilead's world, characters, and plot points, retelling and re-examining each one with care.
But in this installment, Jack, Robinson meets racial inequality head-on.

Jack is not a novel that offers answers to the urgent moral question of American racism. Nor should it. Were Robinson to present a road map for overcoming racial inequality disguised as a love story, both the novel's suggestions and its romance would almost certainly become suspect, at best. Instead, she traces a relationship from its complicated inception to its immensely troubled and moving maturity, and, in so doing, asks American readers to consider both the cruelties of our country's racist recent history and the utter potential, for white Americans in particular, of accepting that we are intrinsically able to do harm. That acceptance brings Jack closer to both love and grace.

As usual, Marilynne Robinson has given us a gentle yet shattering novel with her JACK, the fourth book in the Gilead series. The writing is taut and thoughtful, the plot is direct and yet deep, and the themes interweave in fascinating ways for readers of the first three books in the set. Although I loved the book, I was left feeling incompletely persuaded that Della would have fallen in love with Jack. Perhaps that perspective is the one still missing from Robinson's larger story. I am looking forward to her next book.

Another well written character driven story completing (I hope) this series. It was nice to see where everyone is and what they are doing but I am over them now !

JACK, which occurs circa 1946, is a prequel tHOME, which happens a decade later. The Gilead books are now a quartet, but obviously not sequential. Robinson must have decided she had a lot more to say about Jack and Della, set in the Jim Crow era, when even Black veterans coming home from WW II were met with segregation and violence. Della is the daughter of an educated and successful Methodist minister from Memphis, who meets Jack. Gilead readers know Jack as the prodigal son of a Presbyterian minister. Della is kind and gentle in a soft, murmuring way, and is in love with poetry and literature. Like Jack, she often considers the world metaphysically. Jack is a bum, basically, living on the streets or wherever he can find to sleep, thieving and drinking, often with run-ins with police,but is a gentle soul, nevertheless. Jack, too, loves poetry and often thinks in metaphysical terms. His goal is “harmlessness.”Together, they have some things in common, even if they are not practical things. This is the story of their journey together, how it begins.

Robinson’s language is a joy to read, to parse; it is inside the complexity of language that the story evolves. Pick any page and you will find a gem of joy in her linguistics. Although her metaphysics embody a paradox of exuberance and restraint, the character progression is static, because their decisions and intentions are within their shared trapped philosophy—a kind of “what if” stagnation. Moreover, they address the very dangerous and scary laws against miscegenation too casually and deftly, as if their predominant problem is the judgment of her family, who would disapprove of them together.

Their thoughts and philosophies are intricate and passionate within its theological framework. Their actual dialogue can be stilted, however, when it’s pragmatic and not waxing poetically. How they go from point A to point B in their relationship strained some credibility. I found myself enjoying the book in its philosophical intelligence, but the actual plot is fairly formulaic. And their attraction, although understood within the language, lacked actual chemistry to me. The interior lives are rich in thought, but the progression of the story is more monotonous and derivative. Jack is fully developed, also, while Della seems one-dimensional. She’s presented as flighty, but yet resolute. Jack lives in a crude “lowlife” manner, but with Della we can observe that he is capable of poise and allure.

I did find a way for me to accept, believe, and embrace Robinson’s story as a whole, even if some of the sum is questionably realistic. Both Jack and Della do possess a reprieve that is separate from the world, but very much a response to it, too. Jack is misunderstood by those around him, by the uncouth characters that exploit him and even hurt him physically. His depth of thought and ability to find a transcendence through poetry, and to be delighted by Della’s natural equanimity, is a joy to read. A lesser author would be pithy, but Robinson’s writing is sublime. She is grace Itself, and if the devil is in the details, she finesses those, too, with elegance and mercy, breaking my heart in the process.

“He was inclined to believe that there were (a) energy, and (b) displacement. Any gesture was, whatever else, like freeing something from your hand, some living thing that would touch or settle wherever it happened to be carried on the surge of displacement. ... he was ill suited to the brittle, frangible world of things. It was as though planet Energy and planet Order had collided and merged, leaving displacement as the settling of the ruins....the small gesture of, say, recommending a book of poetry to someone became displacement that struck where it would...converting itself in midair into malice or stupidity. How did people live? His oldest question.”

A must for Robinson fans and literary readers. It is part of a quartet, but works as a stand-alone.

Thank you to St Martins Press and Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux and netgalley for sending me an ARC for review.

Beautifully written love story that left me a little confused at times. It wasn't as engaging as I expected it to be based on reviews I read.

Jack, otherwise John Boughton Ames, is the son of the elderly minister seen in Robinson’s previous novel Gilead. He is estranged from his family and living on the edge of poverty in a city in the Deep South, where rules, social mores, and laws are different – especially about the issues of race and inter-mingling. This tale will be told largely through his eyes and experiences, but the gradual unfolding in a non consecutive way will mirror the other chaos of his life. In short he is living life on the edge, financially socially and mentally. The occasional handout from his family will keep him afloat, but otherwise he is in deep trouble, his lack of finance (friends and social support networks) make him incredibly open to abuse – that will be described at various stages and in often painful details in this book. But Jack seems to live his life in a deeply “contemplative” way in response to his daily actions. He has decided that he is a liability and a risk to the people he loves and therefore seeks to avoid them while needing company. In spite of his deep thoughts he seems to fall into a series of strange, often bizarre, incidents that drag him further down.
But as the novel progresses it will become clear that Jack has met and seriously fallen for a young Negro woman called Della. She comes from a background that seems to mirror his own and in some respects that resonate with hers - as she is from a rural background, within a close family and a family bedded deep in the church and community, but deeply interested in literature and ideas of the mind. But in the city she is still under scrutiny at all times and ultimately her income and limited freedoms depends on her behaviour being “acceptable”. Jack is drawn to her inexorably and he will struggle with his desires, wishes and his extreme fixation to keep her safe from himself.
Della is a powerful young woman, with strong opinions of her own. In spite of the views of her friends, family (when they know), and community she too will be drawn to Jack. Regarding this as a meeting of minds, she will find Jack’s obvious attraction interspersed with rejection of her company hard to deal with. But ultimately she will have to decide whether she will choose to break social taboos – and indeed the law - and establish a serious relationship with Jack. The price of such a relationship will be family dispute, community isolation and ultimately jail. The only response to this is to move away from their current lives (Jack’s still incredible vulnerable) and move to a city where race issues are not quite so toxic and rebuild their lives either together or apart.
This is a very strange but deeply moving novel of two people of courage trying to live within constrictive rules. But Jack is an extraordinary man who has deep convictions around his own morality, especially in the face of his own belief in his own toxicity to others. This hard self-critique does not make for an easy read, as he lives his life on a very high and sharp edge. That Della will choose to walk beside him and build a life and possibly a family shows her essential courage, stubbornness and eccentricity too. But Robinson is a compelling writer that draws the reader through this tale that explores all aspects of morality – from large actions to small. It should be said that this is not always an easy read, Jack is an exasperating character who never seems to move far from his difficulties; but he does keep on living true to himself. So this is a novel that will speak to many people as they are made to visually “walk in another’s shoes”; those of one who exists outside his usual time, culture and normalities

The beautiful prose in Robinson's latest addition to her Gilead collection is reason enough to sit down and start reading this book. The evocative words conjure up a vision of the characters that stick with you throughout.
I do think, though, that if you hadn't read the previous books and had some familiarity with the background and plot, you would be at a disadvantage. They do better as a group than as standalones.
This is an exceptionally good book for book clubs and book discussions. It's not especially lengthy but is packed with a chance to dissect and analyze the characters.