That’s the title of the new novel by Marilynne Robinson, whose only other novel to date is the well-loved Housekeeping. I’ve not read Housekeeping yet (though I have seen the movie), but I have a feeling I may need to read this latest novel first. Michael Dirda’s review in today’s Washington Post was very stirring. He quotes this excerpt from the novel, a passage of extraordinary beauty and resonance:

I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can’t believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don’t imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely.

Here’s the complete text of Dirda’s review (registration required).