We see him in Gilead as the casually cruel neighbour’s son of John Ames’s memory in Home as the prodigal son who has been quietened by life, but cannot help resisting a reunion. But he is also hopeful of improvement – of his fortunes improving, of improving himself, of finding someone who believes he is worth the effort. He is too proud and damaged to return home, even for his mother’s funeral. As this novel opens, we see him living in a small town far away, occasionally visited by his kindly brother Teddy, but more often collecting the money that Teddy leaves for him at a previous address. Jack is the wayward son of Reverend Robert Boughton, one of several sons and daughters but the only one who turned away from the family completely. Jack is the first of the series not to take place at all in the town of Gilead, though it certainly haunts the entire novel. It’s the fourth of the Gilead series, though technically you can read them in any order. She is one of the few authors whose output I eagerly await, and I had Jack preordered – it arrived a couple of weeks before the official publication date, and I couldn’t resist jumping right in. The publication of a new novel by Marilynne Robinson is always an event.
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