O Little Town of Gilead (Iowa)

Over the weekend I went to the beach and started reading "Gilead," by Marilynne Robinson, which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize Award for Fiction. I sat down in the rocky, fish-smelling sands of Lake Erie and read my brain out, until the sun had scorched my belly a shade of strawberry. This caused me a great deal of pain and depression, because it became abundantly clear that I have a bit of a belly. I weigh 140 pounds, but I have a belly. WTF?! It's true...my stomach is pink, with little white creases in it where my fat rolled up, and no sun hit.

Yeah, I'm hot.

On a happier note, this book "Gilead" is blowing me away. It's about a father writing a lengthy letter to his seven-year-old son, which he hopes the son will read someday when he's much older. See, the father is dying, and he's trying to leave his son some lasting lessons about family, religion, how things change (and stay the same) across generations...it's really quite beautiful, and there are so many places where I choke up. Which was a sight for sore eyes at the beach yesterday...me and my naked, toasted chest welling up with tears.

But if you've got a parent who is ill, or you've got children that someday will become our heirs to this planet, this book will grab at your heartstrings, and really satisfy you. Here's a line from the main character, John Ames, as he writes in his letter to his son:

"People talk about how wonderful the world seems to children, and that's true enough. But children think they will grow into it and understand it, and I know very well that I will not, and would not if I had a dozen lives. That's clearer to me every day. Each morning I'm like Adam waking up in Eden, amazed at the cleverness of my hands and the brilliance pouring into my mind through my eyes - old hands, old eyes, old mind, a very diminished Adam altogether, and still it is just remarkable."

It really is a great read, even if that line doesn't resonate with you.