Book Review: Gilead

𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐲𝐧𝐧𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧, 𝐈𝐒𝐁𝐍 𝟏-𝟖𝟒𝟒𝟎𝟖-𝟏𝟒𝟖-𝟔

𝔀𝔀𝔀.𝓿𝓲𝓻𝓪𝓰𝓸.𝓬𝓸.𝓾𝓴

If you’re looking for a fast-paced thriller don’t read Gilead. If you’re looking for a gripping romance, look elsewhere. If it’s an injection of international intrigue you’re after, forget it; it’s intensely local.

And if you’re expecting chapters and traditional literary divisions you won’t find them here.

What you will find is an old-fashioned kettle left on the flames from page 1 until the whole book boils over and sings 280 pages later, its whistle running through you as it reaches an unanticipated climax in the final scenes.

The critic of the Sunday Times said simply: ‘A masterpiece’. That’s what it is.

Set in the small fictional town of Gilead, in 1956, it is written as a long letter written by John Ames, an elderly Congregational pastor, as an autobiographical memoir to his seven-year-old unnamed son, to be read after his death.

He’s not a man in a hurry and will make you long for a simpler lifestyle if life has become too cluttered

There are five main characters: elderly Reverand John Ames; his much younger wife, Lila, Reverand Robert Boughton, a retired Presbyterian minister and John’s lifelong friend, and Jack Boughton, his son.

It’s written carefully, and you realise early on that Reverand John Ames is a crucible for theology, philosophy, meditation, and prayer. He’s not a man in a hurry and will make you long for a simpler lifestyle if life has become too cluttered. His relationship, and unlikely romance, with Lila, is sweetly told, but the triangle of the men, John, his old friend Robert, and Robert’s wayward and unpredictable son, Jack, is full of mature love, kindness, failures, sadness, and tension.

Marilynne Robinson somehow has woven into this book, set in a small town with very few characters, and the two statesmanlike characters closing in on death, a telling commentary on aspects of American society in 1956 Iowa. This comes near the end of the novel and I, for one, found it completely arresting and moving. It took me by surprise and left a few tears running down my cheeks.

‘A masterpiece’. Yes. 280 pages. Paperback. Recommended.