Since the 1981 publication of Marilynne Robinson's novel, "Housekeeping"--a stunning debut that was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize--she has built a sterling reputation not only as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, but also as a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. Her compelling and demanding collection "The Death of Adam"--in which she reflected on her Presbyterian upbringing, investigated the roots of Midwestern abolitionism, and mounted a memorable defense of Calvinism--is respected as a classic of the genre, praised by Doris Lessing as "a useful antidote to the increasingly crude and slogan-loving culture we inhabit." In this new collection she returns to the themes which have preoccupied her work: the role of faith in modern life, the inadequacy of fact,