Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Sad but sweet, rough but beautiful, innocent but wise—these were my impressions of this touching story about faith and fatherhood. It is the memoire of a small-town preacher, reminiscing about his own life and the lives of his father and grandfather, his best friend, and his best friend’s children. The memories are written for his son, and the book is full of fathers and sons loving and misunderstanding and sometimes rejecting each other and each other’s faith, but always connected by a special bond. Mixed in with it all are some startling, sometimes funny, and sometimes shocking and heart-wrenching, historical anecdotes. And through it all runs the current of a deep love of life, the natural world, and the people who hurt and help and shape and bless one another.