Gilead

Gilead is a small town in Iowa, just a handful of houses arranged along a few streets, shops, a grain elevator, a water tower, and the old train station. Generations succeed one another in a seemingly peaceful life organized around religious communities. Through a lengthy letter that Reverend John Ames writes to his seven-year-old son to be read after his death, Marilynne Robinson masterfully narrates the apparent order and nothingness of the community. But in any human group, as in the conscience of any individual, it only takes a little scratching to reveal the limitations and baseness that inhabit them. With a luminous and unforgettable voice, John Ames opens his soul, reflecting on loneliness, war, the loss of faith, redemption, and jealousy, to reveal the human condition and convey the miracle of existence. Because Gilead is, in itself, a splendid celebration of life, but also a faithful portrait of the American heartland, dominated by religiosity and ignorance of everything that happens just a few miles away. Of great poetic intensity, Gilead treasures the stark simplicity and the serene, overwhelming beauty of works that manage to endure through time.