Jennifer Egan's novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a clutch of other awards this year. It is at once a sharp social commentary, a showcase for the author's virtuosity, and a constellation of stories so good they invite fast, compulsive reading but also reward more careful attention. It is also a book with particular relevance for Christian theology and ethics.
It was with a dose of suspicion that I started reading the feature article in the New York Times Magazine (Feb. 27) about the Scheibners, a large family intent on creating a well-defined Christian subculture in the midst of what, from its perspective, is a world gone hopelessly awry.
When I first told friends that David and I were having serious marriage conversations, I expected smiles and congratulations. Instead I observed raised eyebrows and puzzled frowns.
My friends’ first question is understandable. “He lives in Arkansas. You have another two years in New York before you finish your doctoral course work. Won’t you be engaged forever?”
Journalism is said to be the first draft of history. In this copiously researched book on the 1960s a former journalist offers an intriguing revision of one of those first drafts.
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