A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER• OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER• A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • MORE THAN 1 MILLION COPIES SOLD“Quietly powerful [and] moving.” O, The Oprah Magazine (recommended reading)Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award, GILEAD is a hymn of praise and lamentation to the … National Book Critics Circle Award, GILEAD is a hymn of praise and lamentation to the God-haunted existence that Reverend Ames loves passionately, and from which he will soon part.
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.
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Beautifully written and deeply moving.
This is one of my absolute favorite books. Totally deserving of the Pulitzer.
Beautiful writing
Exceptional author. Amazing story full of beauty.
I don’t understand the fuss over this book. I found it boring.
Highly recommended, but the pace is just too slow for an engaging narrative. Perfect for the spiritually inclined.
Marvelous!
The hard work of faith and love
A complicated story that you relish picking apart and which leaves you with a deep gratitude for discovering this author.
Robinson’s writing is beautiful and her characters are memorable and unique. Her exploration of the wonder and mystery of faith, of life is enchanting.
A beautiful story
Gilead chronicles the life of John Ames, a seventy year-old preacher, dying of heart disease. The novel takes place in the small town of Gilead, Iowa, and the narrative is written from Ames’s perspective as he undertakes an extended letter to his seven year-old son. The contents of the letters take on the nature of self-revelatory prayers from the …
I really enjoyed this book. It brought back memories of a simpler time. I like the way the authors wrote this book.
One of the western world’s great novels. And paired with it’s sequel “Lila” one of the world’s great love stories. For any reader who values thinking and feeling.