Need Spiritual Sustenance? Read the Novel, Gilead, to See the Power of Faith
Pulitzer Prize 2005
Reading the Pulitzer Prize Winners for Fiction Since 2000
Last year, I made it one of my projects to begin reading all the Pulitzer Prize-winning novels since 2000. On one of my bookstore jaunts, I scored a $6.00 copy of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, a book that’s been on my reading list for years. Since Gilead was the 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction — and since I’m not reading them in any particular order, I bought the book knowing that it would help me achieve my goal.
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to find this deep and lovely, soulful and wise, book, one that will remain on my shelves and be pulled down over and over for a reminder of how authentic faith feels and acts. James Wood, a critic for the New York Times, described Gilead as “fiercely calm,” “a beautiful work — demanding, grave and lucid,” and I would wholeheartedly agree.
I Am Not Adequate to the Task:
This book is so beautiful that my words can’t adequately describe it, because I know I can’t capture the beauty and depth of it. Instead, I’ll quote the words of the main character of the novel, John Ames, a lifelong pastor who laments that the words he…
