Jack cover art

Jack

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Jack

By: Marilynne Robinson
Narrated by: Adam Verner
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

A New York Times best seller.

A Barack Obama Book of the Year 2020.

Marilynne Robinson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the American National Humanities Medal, returns to the world of Gilead with Jack, the final in one of the great works of contemporary American fiction.

Jack tells the story of John Ames Boughton, the loved and grieved-over prodigal son of a Presbyterian minister in Gilead, Iowa, a drunkard and a ne'er-do-well. In segregated St. Louis sometime after World War II, Jack falls in love with Della Miles, an African American high school teacher, also a preacher's child, with a discriminating mind, a generous spirit and an independent will. Their fraught, beautiful story is one of Robinson's greatest achievements.

©2020 Marilynne Robinson (P)2020 Hachette Audio UK Christian Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Metaphysical & Visionary Small Town & Rural

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Kiss Myself Goodbye cover art
Leaving Blythe River cover art
Sisters of the Southern Cross cover art
The Late Mattia Pascal cover art
This Place of Wonder cover art
An American Marriage (Oprah’s Book Club) cover art
Backwards to Oregon cover art
Sunrise on Half Moon Bay cover art
The Charioteer cover art
The Lost Bookshop cover art
Safe with Me cover art
In Darkness, Look for Stars cover art
The Painted Veil cover art
The Poisonwood Bible cover art

Critic reviews

"Grace and intelligence...[her work] defines universal truths about what it means to be human." (Barack Obama)

"Radiant and visionary." (Sarah Perry, Guardian)

"Jack is the fourth in Robinson's luminous, profound Gilead series and perhaps the best yet." (Observer)
All stars
Most relevant  
I have waited long to hear Jack's voice. I was enchanted to meet him. I know now why MR is my favourite author. She has faithfully represented him.

Sublime

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I had so hoped to get a resolution on Jack's story after reading Gilead and Home. Like the other books, this one can be mesmerising at times but a bit wearisome in the relentless ruminations of Jack, to make it feel ultimately worth the effort. I'd also hoped to see this book intersect with the time frame of Gilead and learn how it fits with his life's journey. Alas, that was a disappointment. The interview with the author is hardly an interview, a brief exchange of words really. She is a great writer and I did enjoy a lot of the book, so I'm disappointed to have to be negative about it. The narrator is excellent!

Too disappointing to be great

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have enjoyed all Marilynne Robinson’s other books and was eager to hear Jack’s story.
parts of it are tedious and I had the urge to fast forward or give up. Near the end, the story seems to develop a bit more and engaged me, but then the actual end of the story I felt was poor.

I’m glad I know Jack better, but to be honest, what I know could have been told in half the time .

Not her best work.....I had to work hard to stick with it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great narrator. Storyline just a tad too long . Interesting insight into that period. Read Jack before Gilead so interested in the characters in the background.

A little drawn out

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.