Hello and welcome to Close Reads on the Circe Institute Podcast Network.

I am David Kern, and I just got done recording a bonus episode of Close Reads with my friend Christine Perrin.

Christine is a poet.

She has a new book of Poetriot called Bright Mirror, which is available on Amazon.

She is involved with classical academic press, which her husband, Chris Perrin, started.

And she's also taught at Messiah College. She has written poetry curriculum. And she

regularly speaks at Circe conferences. So she is a good friend of ours. And she is a fellow lover

of Marilynne Robinson's works. And she is in particular

a lover of Lila, the newest book. And in this conversation, she and I chatted about

Gilead, home, Lila. Spoiler free. We didn't talk about any spoilers in Home or Lila, and really

nothing even at the end of Gilead. So some higher level stuff about why these books are so great, the poetry of them,

the metaphors in them, what poets would be great to read along with Marilynne Robinson,

a number of great topics.

And you, I believe, will find that there are just very few people that are more wise and pleasant to listen to

than Christine Perrin when it comes to talking about literature.

So I wanted to make sure that we got her on close reads to talk about these books as a little

bonus episode. So I hope you enjoy this conversation. I sure enjoyed being a part of it.

And I began the conversation by just asking her how she first came across Marilynne Robinson and what her introduction was. And this is what she had to say. All right. Well, I was introduced to the books. I think Zoe read it before I did. I think she got it for a graduation

present. And then, um, and would this be Gilead? Did you read Gilead first?

Juliet first. Yes, I read them in order. And then, uh, from a mutual friend of ours,

um, named Hallie. And then I heard about it.

I had two friends.

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