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Gilead
by Marilynne Robinson

Gilead Cover

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

This is one of the few books I have read that has made me actively slow down my reading pace. Every sentence, every word feels purely distilled into its most emotionally resonant core. Robinson's prose conjures up that curious feeling you get sometimes in the early morning or the twilight gloaming, that wonderful sense of anticipation made so sweetly poignant by its inherent transience. Beautiful and elegiac, one of my all-time favorite novels.
Recommended by Nathan, Powells.com

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

"[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)

"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)

"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:

Twenty-four years after her first novel, Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson returns with an intimate tale of three generations from the Civil War to the twentieth century: a story about fathers and sons and the spiritual battles that still rage at America's heart. Writing in the tradition of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, Marilynne Robinson's beautiful, spare, and spiritual prose allows "even the faithless reader to feel the possibility of transcendent order" (Slate). In the luminous and unforgettable voice of Congregationalist minister John Ames, Gilead reveals the human condition and the often unbearable beauty of an ordinary life.

Synopsis:

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.

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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:
sneddy29, October 3, 2007 (view all comments by sneddy29)
This has become one of my favorite books. It is very "meaty" but is all full of "dessert". It is the type of book your heart yearns for, because it has so much sage advice , that you pick up while reading it.
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anunusualwoman, July 14, 2007 (view all comments by anunusualwoman)
This book is in the form of a letter from a dying pastor to his young son is beautifully written, wonderfully painted and sculpted with words and phrases.
Some of the biblical references were lost on me but that didn't stop me from enjoying the book anymore than not understanding abstract art would keep me from enjoying a painting.
Like a delicious dessert to be enjoyed just for the pleasure of it.
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Rachel Oftedahl, January 4, 2007 (view all comments by Rachel Oftedahl)
My mother lent me this book, commenting that it was beautiful, but made her wish she knew more about the Bible. I sedately went through this book, as there is no way to fly through it. I can only describe it as a slow meditation in reading form, leaving you with a complete feeling of peace and satisfaction at the end. I literally put it down and just sat there smiling. And being a heathen, I'm sure some of the finer biblical points were lost on me, but the writing was so well done, it never made me feel as if they were.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780312424404
Author:
Robinson, Marilynne
Publisher:
Picador USA
Author:
Robinson, Marilynne
Subject:
General
Subject:
Fathers and sons
Subject:
Clergy
Subject:
General Fiction
Publication Date:
January 2006
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
247
Dimensions:
8.18x5.62x.66 in. .53 lbs.
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