In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, a kind of last testament to his remarkable forebears. 'Gilead is a beautiful work - demanding, grave and lucid ...Robinson's words have a spiritual force that's very rare in contemporary fiction' James Wood, New York Times Book Review 'Serenely beautiful, and written in a prose so gravely measured and thoughtful, that one feels touched with grace just to read it. There's nothing flashy in these pages, and yet one regularly pauses to reread sentences, sometimes for their beauty, sometimes for their truth ...A portrait of the human condition - prey to isolation and loneliness, ever needful of faith and love' - Washington Post