Gilead

By: Marilynne Robinson

Narrated by: Tim Jerome

Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2005

National Book Critics Circle Award, Fiction, 2005

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 50, 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.

Gilead is the long-hoped-for second novel by one of our finest writers, a hymn of praise and lamentation to the God-haunted existence that Reverend Ames loves passionately, and from which he will soon part.

©2004 Marilynne Robinson (P)2005 BBC Audiobooks America, Published by Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC

Critic reviews

" Gilead is a beautiful work: demanding, grave, and lucid...Robinson's words have a spiritual force that's very rare in contemporary fiction." ( The New York Times Book Review)
"The long wait has been worth it....Robinson's prose is beautiful, shimmering, and precise....Destined to become her second classic." ( Publishers Weekly)
"[ Gilead] is so serenely beautiful, and written in a prose so gravely measured and thoughtful, that one feels touched with grace just to read it." ( The Washington Post Book World)

Needed this book for school

Would you listen to Gilead again? Why?

Although this was

Who was your favorite character and why?

The grandfather, a minister who was also violently active in the Civil War, made for an interesting character.

Which character – as performed by Tim Jerome – was your favorite?

The book was written entirely from a first-person perspective.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, but I was grateful for its company during long car rides.

Any additional comments?

The Kindle-car stereo interface is ideal for me, and made my time with this book much easier to fit in.

I Wept

This is both a beautiful book, and a beautiful performance. I spent the last 15 minutes of the book weeping. I was weeping from all the beauty.

Good storytelling.

I enjoyed the storytelling through letters in this novel. It's not a new concept, but I've rarely seen it in YA literature.

Perfect

To me, this book is perfect. I couldn't have imagined how much I loved this book. The gentle wisdom and wonderful appreciation of life and genuine humor. I rewound passages numerous times just to hear them again.

And the narrator is perfect too. When I was close to the end, I settled into a chair in a quiet space so I could soak in the final minutes of the book. Just a wonderful book.

A book for dreaming over

Usually, I gobble books. Not this one. Exquisitely written, it begs the reader to pause, to ponder, to wonder, to marvel. So delicate, like leaves rustling in a light breeze. As the narrator ponders his life, so you cannot help but ponder your own. Here is a book full of spirit, a sermon if you like, without the preaching down to the reader. Instead it is an invitation to think with compassion about oneself, one's failings, one's relationships with God and man. Amazing.

A story filled with truth

This book was much more than a heart warming story, it was a story filled with truth and wisdom. It's about an old man writing both his memoirs and a diary to his only son before he dies about his extraordinary life as a pastor who genuinely loved, not only his "flock" but people in general. Although his father and grandfather were clergy, in the end, he was left with conflicting, confusing examples of right and wrong. Wanting to do the right thing at the end of his life, he wasn't sure what was always right. How does one really love? What does love really mean? In his struggle to find the way, he leads us as well. This book has insight and meaning into life and love. It's a most worthwhile and fun listen.

Ramblings of old memories

Ramblings of an old minister....interesting to only his family.
I found it repetitive and not really that interesting!

keep with it! well worth it!!

So glad I kept with it. so worth it! Brilliant work!definitely would recommend it. loved it.

Constellations were singing

Such a clever, clever book. It takes you to quite unexpected places - Gileadites, the prodigal son who leaves again and again, a patriarchy of pastors who are blind to their world and yet acutely observant of human nature but ignorant of what is directly in front of them. The invention of God and a turn on Feuerbach. I've been to Iowa. It'll never be the same. I would be happy to read this again. There's also a lot of joy in this book. Calvin gets a lot of cameos. Super American book, by which I mean it mines some themes that are v. Interesting to outsiders like me, e, g. John Brown. This is a beautifully nuanced piece of writing.

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If you could sum up Gilead in three words, what would they be?

Nice story, good performance, but I think I would have enjoyed this book more by reading it, not listening.