The Night Writer

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On the Nightstand
"Home" by Marilynne Robinson.

The words "Christian fiction" leave me ambivalent. It strikes me that the best works are usually allegorical, such as the C.S. Lewis Narnia series, while most of the books that are meant to be "relevant" come off sounding stilted and awkward, with paper-thin plots and characters. I don't want to like something just because it has a "Christian" label; I want to love something because it's damn -- I mean, darn -- good writing that also has a natural, comfortable relationship with faith. While Home, and it's companion novel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead, aren't meant (I don't think) to be either banners or apologias of Christianity, the challenges, joys and comforts of the faith are woven realistically and unadorned through the common story. I can't begin to tell you how refreshing it is to be drawn into stories about good, decent people wrestling with some of the most profound challenges and fears you can have with grace and humanity. The people are truly characters, not caricatures, genuine throughout with no heinous, hypocritical secrets.
While Gilead is the older of the two books, Home is not really a sequel because it takes the unusual approach of mirroring the original story but through the eyes of different characters. Whereas Gilead is told in the form of a long, first-person letter from the elderly Rev. Ames to his young son, Home uses third-person narrative to unveil the drama originally alluded to in the household of Ames' best friend, the dying Presbyterian minister Robert Boughton who is being tended to by his quietly desperate but dutiful daughter, Glory, and his son, the troubled prodigal, Jack. While we become well acquainted with Glory's innermost thoughts and frustrations, Jack is as enigmatic to us as he is to the rest of his family, revealed only by the things he says and his often tortured body language. Both books are largely gentle narratives with few fireworks, but gripping nevertheless as the sparest scenes can still pack the equivalent of an emotional body blow. Most of all, you come to really care about the characters and what will happen next.
Gilead moved me profoundly when I read it about a year ago, and Home both completes the story and the soul-deep satisfaction I originally glimpsed. I also gained a deeper insight into my own life and family and into the struggles and mysteries of salvation, grace and redemption woven through devastating family dynamics. There's nothing sugar-coated or inauthentic here, though, which makes the story even more powerful. You don't have to read one book in order to enjoy the other but, believe me, you're going to want to. (For more about Gilead, read the "Balm in Gilead" series under my Night Writing category.)

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"Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day." - Charles Dickens

Illuminating fun, faith,
family and foolishness.

“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue,
but the parent of all the other virtues.”

- Cicero

Illuminating fun, faith, family and foolishness.

“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.” - Cicero

Illuminating fun, faith,
family and foolishness.

“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue,
but the parent of all the other virtues.”

- Cicero