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 God-haunted existence that Reverend Ames loves passionately, and from which he will soon part.
Nearly 25 years after Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson returns with an intimate tale of three generations, from the Civil War to the 20th century: a story about fathers and sons and the spiritual battles that still rage at America’s heart. In the words of Kirkus, it is a novel “as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and moving as prayer. Matchless and towering.” GILEAD tells the story of America and will break your heart.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
“The only word for this book is sublime,” said Oprah, upon announcing her 87th book club pick. Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer-winning novel is told from the perspective of John Ames, a Congregationalist minister entering his golden years in the small town of Gilead, Iowa. Gilead unfolds as a stream-of-consciousness account intended to provide Ames’ young son with a precious connection to their family history—and insights into what constitutes a good and moral life. Robinson weaves in a web of complicated characters and intriguing anecdotes, stretching all the way back to how Ames’ grandfather lost an eye in the Civil War. Her reflective tone and poetic vision are dazzling. She captures the extraordinariness of simple moments, like the way streams of water from a lawn sprinkler dance in the sunlight, while also pondering deep questions about spirituality and predestination. Tony-nominated actor Tim Jerome, who narrates the book, transports us right to the Midwestern cornfields. As full of beauty, heartache, and strangeness as life itself, Gilead inspires a sense of wonder in the everyday world.