Marilynne Robinson

Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack - the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty years - comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain. A bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold a job, he is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his traditionalist father, though he remains Boughton's...

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 days of suffering that preceded her newfound security. Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and...