Gilead: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson
Published by Picador on January 10, 2006
Pages: 247
Format: Audiobook

Publisher’s Description: 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. [Note: All links are to the 2006 Reprint edition]

I first became aware of Gilead while in seminary at TEDS. I was part of a “Formation Group” on campus, where a small group of students would meet regularly together with a faculty member for spiritual formation, discussion, and prayer. My Formation Group leader was Dr. Phil Sell, and at some point he asked us to read Gilead together and discuss it. More reading wasn’t exactly what I thought I needed as a seminary student. I think I only read a couple of chapters, as did most everyone else in the group…but I enjoyed what little I read and I always meant to come back to it. I don’t think I knew at the time that Gilead was the winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I also didn’t know that, had I made the effort to read the whole book, it would have been a great benefit to my preparation for ministry.

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