Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith.
Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Alexis de Tocqueville, inform our political consciousness or discussing how beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display. What Are We Doing Here? is a call for Americans to continue the tradition of those great thinkers and to remake American political and cultural life as "deeply impressed by obligation [and as] a great theater of heroic generosity, which, despite all, is sometimes palpable still."
About the Author :
Marilynne Robinson is the author of the novels Lila, Home, Gilead (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), and Housekeeping, and five books of nonfiction: The Givenness of Things, When I Was a Child I Read Books, Mother Country, The Death of Adam, and Absence of Mind. She lives in Iowa.
Carrington MacDuffie is a recording artist and spoken-word performer whose voice acting has been featured in several independent films. Following a lengthy run with a New York vaudeville revue, she spent many years singing, writing, and producing multimedia performances with her seven-piece pop band. Her one-woman spoken-word show, On the Dreaming Earth, has been staged at various venues in Los Angeles and the Pacific Northwest. MacDuffie has received several of AudioFile's Earphones awards, and KLIATT says, "MacDuffie's reading is amazing."
Review :
"Addressing our current political climate, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award winner Robinson, not unexpectedly, does so by considering how writers such as Emerson and Tocqueville have shaped our political thought, encouraging us to continue their tradition and play a role in 'a great theater of heroic generosity, which, despite all, is sometimes palpable still.'"
-- "Library Journal"
"As a grieving daughter, What Are We Doing Here? supplied me with the nourishing attention to beauty and grace that is everywhere present in Housekeeping and Gilead."
-- "Literary Hub"
"Carrington MacDuffie brings her vocal skills and narrative art to this remarkable collection...MacDuffie's elegant intonation comes through in these challenging and thought-provoking works. Her clear delivery gives shape to the complex arguments...Robinson's brilliance illuminates this audiobook, and she could have no better narrator than MacDuffie."
-- "AudioFile"
"Dwells on the current political and cultural climate, and defends the importance of the public university."
-- "New York Times Book Review"
"Robinson's gorgeous, demanding, and enlightening essays, propelled by her intricate vision of unity, radiantly recharge both mind and soul."
-- "Booklist"
"Robinson's overall trajectory is clear and important. Her eloquent work stands up for a compassionate faith, the value of education, and a sense of decency."
-- "Publishers Weekly"
"Trenchant essays about faith, values, and history, most delivered as lectures at religious institutions and universities from 2015 to 2017...Sharp, elegant cultural analysis."
-- "Kirkus Reviews"
"With this volume, Robinson claims her place as an essential thinker--a modern, homebred Tocqueville--and offers a wake-up call for the soul, and for the nation."
-- "O, The Oprah Magazine"
