Robinson’s Gilead is one of the truly great and revelatory novels of the last decade. This is a quiet and almost impossibly elegant meditation on life, faith, doubt, and death–issues Robinson tackles with graceful prose that never feels labored and is suffused with gentle yet devastating shocks of wonder. Gilead has the potential to change the way you look at the world, and to make you re-evaluate your place in it. Robinson, who lives and teaches in Iowa City, has also written two books of nonfiction that address everything from religion to the dilemmas facing contemporary society, which should make for a wide-ranging conversation for her appearance as part of the “Talking Volumes” program. It’s been a banner year for the series, what with Joan Didion, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Kaye Gibbons, but as far as we’re concerned, Robinson is the clear highlight. 651-290-1221, www.fitzgeraldtheater.org
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