Although Marilynne Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for her novel Gilead, it took Nick Hornby to bring the novel to my attention in his collection of The Believer book reviews Housekeeping vs. The Dirt (which is an OK-at-best collection). Although I'm not a huge Hornby fan, in general, I'm certainly glad I took up his recommendation in adding Gilead to my stack of spring reading.
Gilead is one of those rare novels that can broach deeply profound themes in its subject matter (specifically, an exploration of what it means to be Christian in the context of over a hundred years of racism in the United States) while still being a well-paced and engaging read. Taking the form of a letter written by an elderly pastors with a terminal heart condition to his young son, the novel relates the story of a family of pastors in the small town of Gilead, Iowa. The novel explores religious conviction and Christian faith, conflicts between fathers and sons, questions of forgiveness, and the historical legacy of slavery and the abolitionist movement, particularly in Kansas, and particularly tied to the radical actions of the Reverend John Brown, all woven gracefully into the autobiographical narrative of the fictional Reverend John Ames, and the lives of his father and grandfather. Gilead is also a deeply relevant novel, in that it explicitly tackles, both spiritually and practically, questions of faith, of the choices a person makes in raising a young family, of forgiveness, and of the racial tensions that still exist in this country. I hope its just not the latent country in preacher in me that responds to this book, because I whole-heartedly recommend it.
Gilead is one of those rare novels that can broach deeply profound themes in its subject matter (specifically, an exploration of what it means to be Christian in the context of over a hundred years of racism in the United States) while still being a well-paced and engaging read. Taking the form of a letter written by an elderly pastors with a terminal heart condition to his young son, the novel relates the story of a family of pastors in the small town of Gilead, Iowa. The novel explores religious conviction and Christian faith, conflicts between fathers and sons, questions of forgiveness, and the historical legacy of slavery and the abolitionist movement, particularly in Kansas, and particularly tied to the radical actions of the Reverend John Brown, all woven gracefully into the autobiographical narrative of the fictional Reverend John Ames, and the lives of his father and grandfather. Gilead is also a deeply relevant novel, in that it explicitly tackles, both spiritually and practically, questions of faith, of the choices a person makes in raising a young family, of forgiveness, and of the racial tensions that still exist in this country. I hope its just not the latent country in preacher in me that responds to this book, because I whole-heartedly recommend it.
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