Surprise Author Interviewer
President Barack Obama turns his hand to book discussion, conducting an interview with Marilynne Robinson for a piece published in the 11/5 issue of The New York Review of Books.
The President reveals that he read Robinson’s second novel, Gilead when he was on the 2004 campaign. In it, he discovered one of his “favorite characters in fiction,” the pastor John Ames, whom he describes as “gracious and courtly and a little bit confused about how to reconcile his faith with all the various travails that his family goes through.”
The two go on to discuss faith, religion, creativity, small town values, American optimism and pessimism, and the “us versus them” tendency of politics.
In a brief segment the President asks Robinson how she developed such a wide perspective growing up in a small rural location.
… how do you think you ended up thinking about democracy, writing, faith the way you do? How did that experience of growing up in a pretty small place in Idaho, which might have led you in an entirely different direction—how did you end up here, Marilynne? What happened? Was it libraries?
Robinson’s immediately answers, “It was libraries.”
The conversation takes place in two parts. The first is available now and the second will be posted in the next issue. A free audio recording of the interview is available via iTunes.