2008 • 325 pages
Ratings4
Average rating4.5
15
Ratings4
Average rating4.5
Hailed as "incandescent," "magnificent," and "a literary miracle" (Entertainment Weekly), hundreds of thousands of readers were enthralled by Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. Now Robinson returns with a brilliantly imagined retelling of the prodigal son parable, set at the same moment and in the same Iowa town as Gilead. The Reverend Boughton's hell-raising son, Jack, has come home after twenty years away. Artful and devious in his youth, now an alcoholic carrying two decades worth of secrets, he is perpetually at odds with his traditionalist father, though he remains his most beloved child. As Jack tries to make peace with his father, he begins to forge an intense bond with his sister Glory, herself returning home with a broken heart and turbulent past. Home is a luminous and healing book about families, family secrets, and faith from one of America's most beloved and acclaimed authors. - Publisher.
Series
4 primary booksGilead is a 4-book series with 4 primary works first released in 2004 with contributions by Marilynne Robinson.
Reviews with the most likes.
If I think too hard about the fact that this is the first work of fiction I've finished since January, I'll get really sad. Grad school, BAH.
So instead I'll sing Marilynne Robinson's praises. I read “Gilead” in 2007, and some of the same characters from the town of Gilead reappear here, in this retelling of the story of the prodigal son. Robinson has a real knack for writing about faith without being either cheesy or preachy, and gives a simultaneously delicate yet incisive voice to family dynamics–present, past, and our memories of both, even as the present unfolds and the past is dredged up. She is one of those novelists who I will always want to read what she has thought fit to write.
