I'm surprised that most people prefer this to its companion novel, 'Home'. For me, Home's gentle, lyrical third person narrative gives it an originality and linguistic brilliance not quite matched by 'Gilead'. It's still a fantastic novel, with the Reverend Ames' narrative voice refreshingly old-fashioned and soft, not all that dissimilar from the one Robinson adopts in 'Home'. . I'm pleased that I read the second novel first, though there isn't an obvious order in which to read them. The later novel demands that the reader fills in a number of gaps; the former provides some of the answers, but in such a passing, matter-of-fact fashion that they would have been difficult to recall when moving on to the story of Glory and Jack Boughton.

If you read one of these novels then you really should read the other. Together, they form a unique, stand-out piece of literature. ( )

Brilliant. I poured through the pages and loved the simple honesty of the book. Truly worthy of all the accolades that it has received. ( )

I read this originally in 2005 and enjoyed it, but mostly wondered what I had missed and then quickly forgot what I’d read. I re-read it after being won over by Home which left me with the feeling like I needed the whole story – and at only another 247 pages it’s not that difficult.

All-in-all I kind of missed the point - again. I went through the motions of reading it, but got disconnected half way through, and I should have put it down for a bit; but instead plunged ahead wastefully.

What I did get out of it this time was some better appreciation of the careful use language and of the overall complexity of the book's structure. In a sense this is three very different books in one. The first part is Reverend John Ames' background and life. He’s in his seventies with a 7-yr-old son and he has severe heart problems. This book is his message to the grown son he will never know. He starts by telling stories of his childhood. He’s a third generation minister and the stories of his grandfather and father’s philosophical battles color this story. At some point he begins to leave the back stories behind and wanders around his own theology and his own takes on life. Then Ames' interactions with Jack, a troubled man, begin to take over the narrative, making the third part of the book. Jack sends Ames into a theological crisis of sorts – or at least into some serious consideration on how the blend Jack into his lifelong-crafted thoughts on life. I’m tempted to characterize the structure as first a theological background, then theological thoughts, and then theology put into action – but that over simplifies and over-emphasizes the religious side, I think. Ames is not blindly religious, although he has his limits for dealing with atheism.

What amazed me in hindsight is that while Jack’s story is the center of this book, it’s not necessarily the best part. For me personally the early sections were wonderful – beginning with the trek Ames took with his father in 1892 on foot from Iowa to Kansas to find the grave of his grandfather who abandoned the family late in life. Ames was 12 at the time.

As he digs into his father and grandfather, the color of these two comes out in a rawness of their differences. It’s Ames wild grandfather that left the deepest impression on me. He came to Iowa from Maine during the era of bloody Kansas – and he came as a man possessed having had a vision of Christ. He fully invested himself in the violence of the anti-slavery movement while ministering. He supported John Brown and inspired a generation of Gilead, Iowa men to enlist and die in the Civil War; and then he continued preaching to his dwindling church of widows after the war. By Ames childhood, his grandfather was a something of a crazy man who still had conversations with God out loud, and constantly sacrificed himself – seeing himself only as a failure and disappointment of immense intensity. In one particularly riveting memory Ames’ grandfather says to Ames’ father, “Reverend, no words could be bitter enough, no day could be long enough. There is just no end to it. Disappointment. I eat it and drink it. I wake and sleep it.’’ In this deranged way he is somehow an inspiration. At some point in history President U. S. Grant characterized Iowa as “the shining star of radicalism” – a concept so completely opposite of everything we think of in Iowa today that it mocks its modern counterpart. And Ames' grandfather is the symbol of this radicalism – he’s also based on a real character.

I should have closed the book after this opening section and taken a break. Somewhere around page 100 the book gently morphs into where Ames begins to work in his theology and … well, I didn’t take it in. By the time I got the dramatic final story of Jack I was simply reading to finish. ( )

Knowing that he's living out the last weeks of his life, third-generation pastor John Ames begins a long letter to the young son born late in his father's life. Reverend Ames writes as one adult to another, in a sense substituting for the memories his son will not have as he grows up without a father. Reverend Ames starts with family history and brings to life his grandfather, the first John Ames, a fervent abolitionist, and his father, the second John Ames, an equally earnest pacifist. Gradually the narrative assumes the nature of a spiritual journal as Reverend Ames becomes introspective about his calling as a minister and the living out of this call, the theological questions he has wrestled with, his continuing struggles for purity of thought and action, and meditations on the sacredness of the ordinary things in life.

This was the perfect book to read during the Thanksgiving season. John Ames was conscious of the blessings in his life, from his wife and son's love and companionship in his old age to the memory of the light over his grandfather's Kansas grave. In John Ames, we see the possibilities of living well, with gratitude, faith, and integrity, and of ending well, with few regrets and hope for the future.

This book belongs on every pastor's bookshelves alongside works on pastoral theology and practical ministry. Highly recommended. ( )

This is a beautiful book, and takes you into the head of someone you, or at least I, might otherwise have a very difficult time relating to