I have tried a couple of times to read Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead but each time gave up with boredom (despite it being routinely included on best-of-all-time lists). So what made me think I’d fine the second book set in the town of Gilead and focused on religion to be more captivating, I’m not sure. But I was! More captivated that is. Still not going to run away with any prizes for being enthralling or Utterly Engrossing, but definitely a winner here in the slow burn of character development and theme.
The book follows Jack and Glory, siblings returned home to care for their dying father – a retired minister. I guess Jack didn’t really come home to care for him, or Glory either, both sort of find their lives falling apart and return home, conveniently to care for the dying dad. For Jack it’s a return after a long exile/absence and for his father this is something of a chance to redeem Jack (who’s soul he has been Very Worried About).
Unfolding over many scenes of making tea, or standing in a garden, or rocking on a porch bench, Glory and Jack reconnect and cautiously share and build trust. It asks readers to figure out where the limit of familial bond might be, how we carry/negotiate/give up/fail/rebuild familial expectations, and when – if ever – we might be allowed to start our lives again when they Go Wrong.
If you are tired, sleepy, exhausted, even a bit likely to doze, I’d say make this a Morning Book as you will almost certainly fall asleep within a paragraph as the lyrical writing and slowwww pace are very… lulling. But if you’ve got your 8 hours and a cup of coffee, you could do much worse for a book to read and contemplate What It All Means.
Literary Vice 