I was at a party a few weeks ago when a friend sat down and mentioned a book that it made her want to understand GRACE. She was talking theology.
The subject matter stayed with me but unfortunately I forgot the name of the book. Luckily my older son, who reads almost everything, was able to supply it, and I headed for the Library.
Gilead is a really wonderful book. An old minister named John Ames writes to his very young son, whom he knows he will not see grow up. The book starts straightforwardly, but the quiet of the small Iowa town is disturbed by the return of a wayward son, Jack Boughton, a namesake of the protagonist. Jack’s past is disturbing, and the Reverend Ames ponders warning his family against the outsider. The secret the tormented and difficult prodigal eventually reveals is unexpected and terribly painful.
Historically, this book deals with the American heartland, in particular Iowa and Kansas (at its bloodiest). When should Christians go to war? Ames interprets the influenza pandemic of 1918 as a sign from God, and subsequent wars as punishment for ignoring that warning.
This book is quiet and meditative, and lyrically beautiful. There’s no doubt in my mind that it qualifies as “literature”. I know I will read it again.
I read and enjoyed Housekeeping by Ms. Robinson a few years ago. Gilead is even better, and it is part of a trilogy! I look forward to reading the two additional novels and also her essays. I’ll start with the collection entitled When I Was a Child I Read Books.
AMG Reading Journal 
My book club read all three and then had an English teacher come lead our discussion of them. All the same characters at different times in the story and different points of view. You’re in for a wonderful read. Family, love, breach, reconciliation, as well as the theology especially in Gilead, but also in Home. If I were you I would move right on to Home and then Leila.