Gilead  (English, Paperback, Robinson Marilynne)

A Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, Gilead tells the story of Reverend John Ames through his eyes, as he dies of a heart condition, to leave his seven year old son something to remember him by.

Summary of the Book

John Ames remembers his father and grandfather, hoping to pass on these memories to his son. Deeply theological and philosophical in his voice, John writes his autobiography with the prayer that his son learns from his experiences some day. He reveals how their vocational lifestyle and profession as Congregationalist ministers in Gilead, Iowa firmly gave them a responsibility of guiding other people towards their duty and responsibility. His grandfather was a war veteran, and returned to his vocation with one eye. A giving man, his generosity and his strange affection for preaching while wearing a bloodied shirt and a gun in it, as well as the mystery surrounding his grave eked a shadow upon him. John and his father was no less strange, and John carried on the tradition. John explains how he lost his first wife and their daughter, and how the sorrow ate away at him for years before he found his second wife. A revealing title, the book looks into the life of a dying man as he tries to pass on his legacy to his son.

About Marilyn Robinson

Marilynne Summers Robinson is an American Pulitzer-Prize-winning novelist and essayist. She has also written: Housekeeping, Home and Lila.
She is also a visiting professor in several universities, such as the University of Kent, Amherst, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst' MFA Program for Poets and Writers. In 2013, she was awarded the 2012 National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama and was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize. She has also won the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction, the 1999 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and the 1980 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for best first novel.