Some books, brilliant books, are written to be encountered. When I finished listening to Gilead, I wasn't thinking about Robinson, her Pulitzer prize, or Iowa. I wasn't even really thinking about the Reverend Ames or Jack Boughton. I was thinking that I ought to treat myself to this book again sometime. That, a year or two, or five, from now, I should get it again, maybe in print, and encounter this story all over again.

As novels go, its epistolary, didactic, and apologetic. But to reduce it to those literary technicalities ignores the spark nesting in its narrative. A narrative that swings wildly from from remonstrations about letting your poor buddy sit on the front porch when you finish a cartoon to heart- and gut- wrenchingly deep meditations on the nature of grace. It's metameditation in its own way. The old and dying Revered Ames is writing a long, loving diary to his seven year old son-- the blessed son he thought he would never have in a blessed marriage he couldn't have hoped for. Knowing that he will be unable to teach his son the great lessons of life and family (and aren't they the same thing?), Ames sets out to write down as much of it as he can. The result is largely stream of consciousness, but again, that's a literary technicality. The result is a beautiful monument to love and history.

Gilead is a real place, of course, both in Israel and in Iowa. But, as Robinson draws cunningly, with infinite care, it's a place that exists within us all; a place to nurture and be nurtured, a place to love and be loved. From Gilead we can look back on our history, Puritan, radical, reform, just plain mean as a snake sinner, and, of course, our real selves are an inextricable melange of those things. But from Gilead we can look back while we look forward and, encountering salvation, know ourselves.