Fiction: Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson
Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Gilead (2005), is the quiet story of John Ames, 76, who has lived almost his entire life in fictional Gilead, Iowa. Faced with old age and a failing heart, Ames composes a long letter to his seven year-old son that moves from his reminiscences to his meditations on faith, fathers, and children—and on those modest, humble moments of life that shine with innocent perfection. Gilead has been widely hailed for its tenderness, simplicity, and serene elegance.

Since the publication of her first PEN/Hemingway Award-winning novel, Housekeeping (1981), Robinson has been revered as one of America’s finest contemporary writers. An instructor at the famed University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, Robinson is also author of the essay collections Mother Country (1989) and The Death of Adam (1998).

Non-Fiction: Arc of Justice, by Kevin Boyle
Kevin Boyle’s most recent book, Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age, also won the 2004 National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. With Arc of Justice, Boyle takes readers back to the white 1925 Detroit neighborhood where Ossian Sweet, a proud Negro doctor, has just bought a house with his wife Gladys. Soon after the Sweets’ arrival, a mob gathers around the house and, in the surrounding furor, shots ring out as one of Sweet's defenders accidentally kills one of the whites threatening his home. Boyle masterfully recounts the police proceedings that ensued and recreates the courtroom drama of this forgotten episode of civil rights history.

A professor at Ohio State University, Boyle teaches 20^th century American history with an emphasis on class, race, and politics. His previous books include The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945-1968 (1998), and, with coauthor Victoria Getis, Muddy Boots and Ragged Aprons: Images of Working Class Detroit, 1900-1930 (1997).

All proceeds benefit Chicago Tribune Holiday Campaign, a campaign of Chicago Tribune Charities, a McCormick Tribune Foundation Fund.

Additional Presenters Kevin Boyle Marilynne Robinson

Recommended Programs Chicago Tribune Young Adult Book Prize Winner: Linda Sue Park 2005 CHICAGO TRIBUNE LITERARY PRIZE: Margaret Atwood