Marilynne Robinson won the pulitzer prize for fiction in 2005 for her novel, Gilead. Some of you have heard me voice high praise for Gilead, both for the beauty of its prose and the truth-ful-ness of the story. For me, there is hardly another modern author, writing to a mainstream audience with a secular publisher, that accomplishes so much for the "things hoped for...the things unseen" (Heb.11:1).  

Now having read Gilead twice and Home once, I can honestly say I've rarely been more impressed with the balance of truth and imagination displayed in these two novels. Robinson doesn't bypass the mind on the way to the imagination, or neglect the imagination to "preach" the truth; but instead she moves through the mind (what C.S. Lewis calls, "the natural organ of truth") on her way to the imagination to cast a vision that neither contradicts or blurs the truth but drives it deeper into the consciousness where meaning can be experienced. I can only speak personally to the impact her works have had on me. But each time I read her I'm left with something like a glow on my heart. I liken it to a kind-of illumination, where ordinary grace and heavenly wonder converge.

Her new book, Home, was released roughly two months ago, and it is already receiving wide acclaim (which it most certainly deserves). Let me encourage you to pick up a copy for yourself. I commend it to you for both its truth and beauty.

BTW: For those of you who subscribe to the New York Review of Books, there is a high quality review of the book in the most recent edition. Don't miss it. The London Review of Books also recently reviewed it if you have access to that publication. Available to all, The Washington Post recently sat down with Marilynne Robinson for an interview where her deep, Reformed convictions were made plain. (She's an avid reader, and lover of John Calvin!) The link to the interview/article is below.

At 'Home' With the Past (Washington Post)