My Grandfather's House A... | Buy

From the award-winning author of the novels Mr. White's Confession and In the Deep Midwinter comes this powerful, thought-provoking history of faith, doubt, and religious belief told through five centuries of one remarkable family.In My Grandfather's House, Robert Clark traces the spiritual quests and struggles of his ancestors, from England's split with the Church of Rome at the end of the middle ages to his own return to the faith five hundred years later.Clark reconstructs their lives as medieval Catholics, heretics, and inquisitors in the England of Henry VII; as Puritan settlers, participants in Indian wars, and accusers in witch trials in New England in the 1600s; as preachers, artists, writers, and agnostics during the theological and intellectual upheavals of the 19th century that left them exploring creeds ranging from evangelical Protestantism to Unitarianism to Buddhism to atheism.In the context of King Henry's divorces and his quarrel with both the Pope and Martin Luther; the religious and personal struggles of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Margaret Fuller, Clark weaves a rich history that culminates in his own quest through doubt toward faith.Profound, moving, and ultimately inspiring, My Grandfather's House is a vivid and original account of the persistence of belief through five centuries of questing and questioning.

Robert Clark is the author of the novels In the Deep Midwinter and Mr. White's Confession, and River of the West, a cultural history of the Columbia River (all Picador), and The Solace of Food, a biography of James Beard. A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, he lives in Seattle with his wife and two children.

"Robert Clark has written an utterly captivating book about his religious conversion. That--and his elegant writing--would be enough to applaud, but My Grandfather's House is also a high-spirited tour of the spiritual contortions of his ancestors from the days of Henry VIII through the colonial Puritans and mystic Transcendentalists into our own secular, seeking age. In this rare work of personal narrative that truly achieves historical significance, his family becomes our own. A fascinating work of history as well as a moving, and often hilarious, account of his own religious struggles, My Grandfather's House immediately presents itself as one of the rare American autobiographies that will endure." --Patricia Hampl, author of A Romantic Education, Virgin Time, And I Could Tell You Stories

Supplemental Materials

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.