Gilead

I loved this book the first time I read it, and rereading it for the second time, I encountered yet another layer of depth, wisdom, and insight. It is a gorgeous novel about spiritual and ethical living, reflected through the lens of an elderly preacher on the brink of death, recalling his life for his young son while sifting through an ongoing conflict with his best friend's son. I cannot recommend this one highly enough. 

The Reverend John Ames—an aged Congregationalist minister in the small, secluded town of Gilead, Iowa—is dying of heart failure, while his seven-year-old son is just entering boyhood. As Ames wrestles with generational wounds related to his father and grandfather, he wonders tenderly about the wounds he might be passing on to his own son, both due to his presence and his pending absence. Thanks to Ames, we get to see life and existence through the eyes of the wise and dying—eyes we so rarely get to see through because, by definition, they leave us before we get a chance to… show more.

This gentle novel highlights the thoughts many of us would want to communicate to our children if we knew our days were numbered. Written as a letter to his young son, whom he will likely never see grow up, Reverend John Ames passes on lessons, regrets, and warnings he would tell his son himself if he lived long enough. Ames’ deep love for his much younger wife, and his concern about his best friend’s son, Jack, a ne’er do well, depict the power of intergenerational relationships to shape us and woo us into each other’s stories. I return often to… show more.

A father writes a letter to his son in this moving book. The father, Reverend John Ames, is at the end of his life. He speaks hard-earned wisdom as he contemplates the nature of faith, the complicated relationships between fathers and sons, and the life he has long loved. Part hymn and part lamentation, this book appeals to me because of my difficult relationship with my father as well as my struggles with faith.