Posted on 20/11/04
A bit too much balm in Gilead
GileadBy Marilynne Robinson HarperCollins Canada, 247 pages, $34.95When I was in college in the early 1980s, Marilynne Robinson's first novel, Housekeeping, was a book passed passionately and reverentially from hand to hand. Her story, of two girls whose eccentric drifter of an aunt is corralled into taking care of them after their mother commits suicide by driving a car off a cliff, was the sort of novel that made young women want to be writers. Robinson's bold, fervid voice gave those of us who already wanted to write something specific to aspire to. (The novel was later made into a movie, not a bad movie, but how could a movie capture that voice?)
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