Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila and Gilead. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith. Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers like Emerson and Tocqueville inform the American political consciousness or discussing the way that beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display.

What Are We Doing Here? is a call for Americans to continue the tradition of those great thinkers and to remake political and cultural life as "deeply impressed by obligation [and as] a great theater of heroic generosity, which, despite all, is sometimes palpable still." (From McClelland & Stewart)

What Are We Doing Here? is available in February 2018.