Understanding Marilynne Robinson by Alex Engebretson, and: Balm in Gilead: A Theological Dialogue with Marilynne Robinson ed. by Timothy Larsen and Keith L. Johnson (review)

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and the Conference on Christianity and Literature's Lifetime Achievement Award, Marilynne Robinson has been widely recognized as one of our time's most profound and influential writers. Her body of work, which includes four novels (a fifth, Jack, released September 2020) and six essay collections, is of particular interest to Christians, as it is known for its frank and thought-provoking explorations of faith. Due to Robinson's unique engagement with contemporary and historical Protestantism, her work has drawn the attention of theologians and literary critics alike, both of whom are engaging with her work in insightful ways.

Alex Engebretson's Understanding Marilynne Robinson offers the first monograph on the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author. Both succinct and thorough, his study walks the reader through Robinson's fiction and nonfiction writing, with one chapter devoted to each of her four published novels and one chapter discussing her various essay collections. In his introduction, Engrebretson identifies three prime influences he sees in Robinson's work—the American nineteenth century, regionalism, and liberal Protestantism—as well as a literary occupation with "the quest for home" (13). In each chapter, he traces these strands and presents an interpretation of Robinson's oeuvre that focuses on its unity while also documenting its evolution as an ever-growing body of work.

It is common for scholars to isolate Robinson's first novel, Housekeeping, from her later Gilead novels due to the twenty-four-year gap between them, as well as the novel's distinctive style and thematic occupations. Engebretson's study draws connections between them, however, by exploring the strands outlined in its introduction. Though it provides an excellent discussion of the influence of the nineteenth century and regionalism on the novel, I would highlight Engebretson's discussion of Housekeeping's religious themes as a particular strength of the chapter. Drawing heavily on the tradition of religious asceticism, Engebretson frames Ruth's development in terms of her movement towards renunciation of the material world and embracing the life of an ascetic. This interpretation is insightful, allowing the reader to see Housekeeping as concerned with spiritual, as well as physical and social, development. Engebretson writes, "Housekeeping is deeply informed by religious traditions without being in any way doctrinally specific" (26). This observation allows him to connect the novel with Robinson's later works centered on religious themes; he posits that the most significant transition, then, is not from nonreligious traditions to religious ones but from "the ascetic mysticism of Ruth to the specific Protestantism of John Ames" (26).

The following three chapters are dedicated to perhaps Robinson's most well-known work, the Gilead novels: Gilead, Home, and Lila. Like the Housekeeping chapter, these chapters discuss the religious aspects of the novels, as well as the influence of regionalism and the American Renaissance. Engebretson discusses each work individually in detail, as well as placing the three in conversation with each other regarding understandings of "home," a consistent image in Robinson's work, which largely takes place in domestic spaces. He also addresses Robinson's unique choice to have the three novels overlap in time and space, presenting multiple, and sometimes conflicting, perceptions of the same events. These chapters also engage with scholarship, but less so than the chapter on Housekeeping, primarily because Housekeeping remains a more-studied work than any one of the Gilead novels. Nevertheless, Engbretson presents thoughtful interpretations of the novels that perhaps invite more scholars into the conversation surrounding these works.

The final chapter, comprising of a broad review of Robinson's various essay collections, will be perhaps the least familiar to the reader of...