Reading Order
Gilead Reading Order
Marilynne Robinson's Gilead (2004) is her second novel and the Pulitzer Prize-winning letter that seventy-six-year-old Congregationalist minister John Ames writes to his young son in the fictional Iowa town of Gilead in 1956, knowing he will die before the boy can read it. It is one of the most celebrated American novels of the twenty-first century — meditative, theological, and deeply Protestant in its attention to grace, light, and the presence of the divine in ordinary life. It was followed by Home (2008) and Lila (2014), companion novels covering the same period from different characters' perspectives.
Where to start
Gilead
Complete Gilead Book List
- 1Buy
Gilead
Marilynne Robinson·2004·Start here — the Pulitzer Prize winner and the entry point to the Gilead sequence. - 2Buy
Home
Marilynne Robinson·2008·Companion novel — the same period from the perspective of Robert Boughton's household next door; Glory and the prodigal Jack. - 3Buy
Lila
Marilynne Robinson·2014·Companion novel — the backstory of John Ames's young wife, told in her voice; her itinerant life before she arrived in Gilead. - 4Buy
Jack
Marilynne Robinson·2020·Companion novel — Jack Boughton in St. Louis in the 1950s, his relationship with a Black schoolteacher named Della Miles, and segregation.
Gilead — Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to read the Gilead novels in order?
Each novel in the Gilead sequence is written to stand alone, but reading order does matter for full appreciation. Start with Gilead — it establishes the voice and world. Home can be read alongside or immediately after; it covers the same summer of 1956 from the perspective of the household next door. Lila is best read after Gilead, as it fills in the backstory of the character whose presence in Gilead is already established. Jack takes place in St. Louis in the 1950s and can technically be read at any point, but rewards having met the character first in Gilead and Home.
What should I read next after Gilead?
Robinson's other novel Housekeeping (1980) is her debut — a very different book, gothic and Northwestern, about two sisters growing up in a transient house by an Idaho lake. For readers who loved Gilead's meditative Protestantism, works by writers who share Robinson's theological seriousness include Silence by Shusaku Endo, The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, and Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry.
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