Jack (Hardcover)

Staff Reviews

The Prodigal Son meets Romeo and Juliet in this graceful and elegant story of forbidden interracial love. Jack Ames Boughton is the son of a Presbyterian minister in Gilead, Iowa, who has spent his entire life lying, stealing, and being a well-read bum, relying on regular financial support from a brother. Della Miles is the daughter of a Methodist (AME) bishop in Memphis, a smart and headstrong high school English teacher. They meet by chance and fall in love in a time when miscegenation is a prisonable crime. There's a lot of lovely dialog in this somewhat slow-moving but compelling story of a meeting of minds. And, as she does in all her novels, Robinson manages to present a fully-fleshed out philosophy of life that makes you copy out sentence after sentence so you can remember them.