Jack, by Marilynne Robinson, is set in 1950s St. Louis. It’s the story of an interracial romance at a time and place where race mixing was literally a crime. Jack, the title character (and the prodigal son of the Presbyterian minister in Robinson’s Pulitzer-Prize winner Gilead), has just been released from prison. Della is a Black schoolteacher. They share in common a love of poetry. The story is heavy on dialogue between the two of them about philosophy, literature and, indirectly, each other, a kind of intellectual flirting. A lot of the story also takes place in Jack’s head where Jack is constantly alternating between approach and avoidance because of his own conviction that he is cursed to harm anyone he loves or who tries to help him. For Della, the daughter of a prominent minister, breaking the racial taboo is not only criminal, it creates irreconcilable conflict in her family (which feeds Jack’s belief that his love of her can only cause harm). The question is whether their idealistic attraction to each other can transcend what appear to be unsurmountable obstacles. Robinson gives a terrific sense of the time and place where the story unfolds, addresses (without resolving) racial divides, and, of course, writes flawless prose. Here’s what NPR says:
