[1] Formerly a Presbyterian. Quoted by Bryan Appleyard in the Sunday Times, 21 September 2008: "I never doubted the religious seriousness of my family, but they were never particularly explicit about it. To a very considerable degree, I'm a religious autodidact, but I don't know if my mother would want me to say that."
Father: John J. Summers
Mother: Ellen Harris
Husband: [Fred?] Robinson (college professor, m. 1967, div. 1989, two sons)
Son: James
Son: Joseph
High School: Coeur d'Alene High School, Coeur d'Alene, ID (1962)
University: BA, Brown University (1966)
University: MA, University of Washington
University: PhD, University of Washington (1977)
Teacher: Writers Workship, University of Iowa
American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2010
Obama for America
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2005 for Gilead
Author of books:
Housekeeping (1980, novel)
The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought (1998, essays)
Gilead (2004, novel)
AKA Marilynne Summers