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Gilead: A Novel
by Marilynne Robinson

Gilead: A Novel Cover

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Awards

2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
2004 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
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Powells.com Staff Pick

A story about faith, love, history and growing old, this book is poignant and lovely. It is a long letter from a father who thinks he is soon to die, to his seven-year-old son. Robinson's command of language, her deep understanding of humanity, and her own religious study come together in this outstanding novel. It was worth the twenty-year wait. Beth, Powells.com

Review-a-Day   (What is Review-a-Day?)

"There is a balm in Gilead, and I hope many people find it. For a country dazzled by literary and military pyrotechnics, this quiet new novel from Marilynne Robinson couldn't be less compatible with the times — or more essential....There are passages here of such profound, hard-won wisdom and spiritual insight that they make your own life seem richer....Gilead [is] a quiet, deep celebration of life that you must not miss." Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire Christian Science Monitor review)

"[N]early every sentence demands to be savored....There has been much talk lately about a religious divide in this country. Gilead, then, may be the perfect book at the perfect time: a deeply empathetic and complex picture of a religious person that is also gorgeously written, and fascinating." Anna Godbersen, Esquire (read the entire Esquire review)

"Gilead is an almost otherworldly book. Its characters are, to a one, good people trying to do right. Obviously a work of enormous integrity, it feels different in kind from the work of writers who produce a book every couple of years, rushing to meet alimony payments, one imagines, or wanting to renovate kitchens. One senses none of the rub of greed informing the writing of the book — but because it lacks the mess of life poking up from the bottom, one is also left without the urgency of fiction." Mona Simpson, The Atlantic Monthly (read the entire Atlantic Monthly review)

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle. Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father — an ardent pacifist — and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend's wayward son.

This is also the tale of another remarkable vision — not a corporeal vision of God but the vision of life as a wondrously strange creation. It tells how wisdom was forged in Ames's soul during his solitary life, and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.

Gilead is the long-hoped-for second novel by one of our finest writers, a hymn of praise and lamentation to the God-haunted existence that Reverend Ames loves passionately, and from which he will soon part.

Review:

"Fans of Robinson's acclaimed debut Housekeeping (1981) will find that the long wait has been worth it. From the first page of her second novel, the voice of Rev. John Ames mesmerizes with his account of his life — and that of his father and grandfather. Ames is 77 years old in 1956, in failing health, with a much younger wife and six-year-old son; as a preacher in the small Iowa town where he spent his entire life, he has produced volumes and volumes of sermons and prayers, '[t]rying to say what was true.' But it is in this mesmerizing account — in the form of a letter to his young son, who he imagines reading it when he is grown — that his meditations on creation and existence are fully illumined. Ames details the often harsh conditions of perishing Midwestern prairie towns, the Spanish influenza and two world wars. He relates the death of his first wife and child, and his long years alone attempting to live up to the legacy of his fiery grandfather, a man who saw visions of Christ and became a controversial figure in the Kansas abolitionist movement, and his own father's embittered pacifism. During the course of Ames's writing, he is confronted with one of his most difficult and long-simmering crises of personal resentment when John Ames Boughton (his namesake and son of his best friend) returns to his hometown, trailing with him the actions of a callous past and precarious future. In attempting to find a way to comprehend and forgive, Ames finds that he must face a final comprehension of self — as well as the worth of his life's reflections. Robinson's prose is beautiful, shimmering and precise; the revelations are subtle but never muted when they come, and the careful telling carries the breath of suspense. There is no simple redemption here; despite the meditations on faith, even readers with no religious inclinations will be captivated. Many writers try to capture life's universals of strength, struggle, joy and forgiveness — but Robinson truly succeeds in what is destined to become her second classic. Agent, Ellen Levine. 5-city author tour. (Nov.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

"[A] second novel that, however quiet in tone and however delicate of step, will do no less than...break your heart....[A] novel as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and moving as prayer. Matchless and towering." Kirkus Reviews

Review:

"[A] work of profound beauty and wonder....Millennia of philosophical musings and a century of American history are refracted through the prism of Robinson's exquisite and uplifting novel as she illuminates the heart of a mystic, poet, and humanist." Booklist

Review:

"[R]eligious, somewhat essayistic and fiercely calm....Gilead is a beautiful work — demanding, grave and lucid." James Wood, The New York Times Book Review

Synopsis:

In 1956, toward the end of Rev. John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. This is also the tale of wisdom forged during his solitary life and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.
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About the Author

Marilynne Robinson is the author of the modern classic Housekeeping — winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award — and two books of nonfiction, Mother Country and The Death of Adam. She teaches at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 3 comments:
sweeny221, December 10, 2006 (view all comments by sweeny221)
Make time to read this novel. Reading this novel will make time for you. It will make moments you spend reading minutes you spend musing. While most books send you to places in your mind, this book transcends to the space wherein sets your soul. Pay a visit.
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mztupelo, November 11, 2006 (view all comments by mztupelo)
I adored "Housekeeping" and was so excited to see that Marilynne Robinson had finally written another work of fiction. I was not prepared for her novel. This is quiet, calm, meditative tale of an older man coming to the end of his life and writing a letter of his life for his young son. Ms. Robinson has the gift of writing about small, quiet moments in a persons life and the effect is a serene peacefully feeling as you read. I was transfixed by this story. The writing was beautiful with images that have stayed with me since first reading it when it came out. I strongly recommend this book as a gift and for a book group as well. Breathlessly beautiful.
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GATONYE, May 30, 2006 (view all comments by GATONYE)
It makes me think 'death where is your sting'. Reconciles the dichotomy between the near dead and the living.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780374153892
Author:
Robinson, Marilynne
Publisher:
Farrar Straus Giroux
Author:
Robinson, Marilynne
Location:
New York
Subject:
General
Subject:
Fathers and sons
Subject:
Clergy
Subject:
General Fiction
Copyright:
2004
Edition Number:
1st ed.
Publication Date:
November 2004
Binding:
Hardcover
Language:
English
Pages:
247
Dimensions:
8.54x5.84x.90 in. .86 lbs.
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