Awards
2014 National Book Critic's Circle Award for Fiction
Staff Pick
With Lila, Marilynne Robinson revisits her beloved town of Gilead, just as she did with Home. This time around, her focus is on Lila Ames, who in both previous novels has been a sort of paragon of calm and dignity. In Lila we learn about her childhood and young adulthood, which could not be further from calm or dignified. Lila lives through a childhood that begins in neglect and works its way through unceasing labor, abandonment, and the endless struggle for survival. Unexpectedly arriving in Gilead, Iowa, and meeting the Reverend John Ames, Lila's life is about to take another sharp turn. The Gilead/Home/Lila trilogy, read together, is a gorgeous, layered, nuanced look at small-town America, full of beauty and peace — truly home. Exploring themes of trust, family, rebirth, security, and love, Lila is stunning and beautiful. It's an intricate look at the complexities of the heart. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
A new American classic from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gilead and Housekeeping
Marilynne
Robinson, one of the greatest novelists of our time, returns to the
town of Gilead in an unforgettable story of a girlhood lived on the
fringes of society in fear, awe, and wonder.
Lila, homeless and
alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town
Iowa church — the only available shelter from the rain — and ignites a
romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of
a minister, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make
sense of the life that preceded her newfound security.
Neglected as a
toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought
up by her in a hardscrabble childhood. Together they crafted a life on
the run, living hand to mouth with nothing but their sisterly bond and a
ragged blade to protect them. Despite bouts of petty violence and
moments of desperation, their shared life was laced with moments of joy
and love. When Lila arrives in Gilead, she struggles to reconcile the
life of her makeshift family and their days of hardship with the gentle
Christian worldview of her husband which paradoxically judges those she
loves.
Revisiting the beloved characters and setting of Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead and Home, a National Book Award finalist, Lila is a moving expression of the mysteries of existence that is destined to become an American classic.
Review
“In her new novel, Lila, Marilynne Robinson has written a deeply
romantic love story embodied in the language and ideas of Calvinist
doctrine. She really is not like any other writer. She really isn't . . .
Robinson has created a small, rich and fearless body of work in which
religion exists unashamedly, as does doubt, unashamedly.” Cathleen Schine, The New York Review of Books
Review
“Ever since the publication of Robinson's thrilling first novel, Housekeeping,
reviewers have been pointing out that, for an analyst of modern
alienation, she is an unusual specimen: a devout Protestant, reared in
Idaho. She now lives in Iowa City, where she teaches at the Iowa
Writers' Workshop and where, for years, she has been accustomed to
interrupting her career as a novelist to produce essays on such matters
as the truth of John Calvin's writings. But Robinson's Low Church
allegiance has hugely benefitted her fiction . . . This is an
unflinching book.” Joan Acocella, The New Yorker
Review
“Gorgeous writing, an absolutely beautiful book . . . This should come
as no surprise to anyone familiar with Robinson, a novelist who can make
the most quotidian moments epic because of her ability to peel back the
surfaces of ordinary lives . . . [a] profound and deeply rendered
novel.” David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times
Review
“Lila is a book whose grandeur is found in its humility. That's
what makes Gilead among the most memorable settings in American fiction .
. . Gilead [is] a kind of mythic everyplace, a quintessential national
setting where our country's complicated union with faith, in all its
degrees of constancy and skepticism, is enacted.” Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
Review
“Writing in lovely, angular prose that has the high loneliness of an old
bluegrass tune, Ms. Robinson has created a balladlike story . . . The
novel is powerful and deeply affecting . . . Ms. Robinson renders
[Lila's] tale with the stark poetry of Edward Hopper or Andrew Wyeth.” Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
About the Author
Marilynne Robinson is the author of the novels Home, Gilead (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), and Housekeeping, and four books of nonfiction, When I Was a Child I Read Books, Mother Country, The Death of Adam, and Absence of Mind. She teaches at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.