Richard Pelham

  In a list I saw of the best books written this century (to date), Gilead was placed second. The brief blurb to justify its lofty position mentioned something deeply philosophical, and I thought I’d better look into it. The novel was also a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It is perhaps unfair for a book to be quite so highly acclaimed. No doubt it does wonders for sales, but it does foster a fervent expectancy in the reader. ‘Fervent’ is probably not a word you will read in any other review of this work. ‘Electric’, ‘explosive’ or ‘exhilarating’ will be equally evasive. ‘Heart stopping’ might come up, but only in the context of the dwindling health of the Reverend John Ames, the main character of the novel. In fact, Gilead consists entirely of a letter or epistle written by the ageing Reverend for his young son to read one day, knowing that his memories of his father might be limited. The title of the book is the name of the small, sleepy town in Iowa where the Rever...