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 life that preceded her newfound security.
Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought up by her in a hardscrabble childhood. Together they crafted a life on the run, living hand to mouth with nothing but their sisterly bond and a ragged blade to protect them. Despite bouts of petty violence and moments of desperation, their shared life was laced with moments of joy and love. When Lila arrives in Gilead, she struggles to reconcile the life of her makeshift family and their days of hardship with the gentle Christian worldview of her husband which paradoxically judges those she loves.
Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought up by her in a hardscrabble childhood. Together they crafted a life on the run, living hand to mouth with nothing but their sisterly bond and a ragged blade to protect them. Despite bouts of petty violence and moments of desperation, their shared life was laced with moments of joy and love. When Lila arrives in Gilead, she struggles to reconcile the life of her makeshift family and their days of hardship with the gentle Christian worldview of her husband which paradoxically judges those she loves.
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Reviews
This superb novel can only add to [Robinson's] already stratospherically high reputation
This third novel in the sequence is, in many ways, the most adventurous of all . . . Lila is the work of an exceptional novelist at the peak of her capacity
A sumptuous, graceful, and ultimately life-affirming novel
The novel of the year for me was Lila by Marilynne Robinson, revisiting the fictional Gilead of her three previous novels. The prose, as always, is magnificent, pitch-perfect, carrying a moral authority, a gravitas and a spiritual depth. There really is nobody else writing like this
Lila by Marilynne Robinson is the heartbreaking conclusion to her Gilead trilogy
The giant themes and big questions that sit beneath the surface of Lila's incredibly moving story are compelling
Told with measured and absorbing elegance, this account of the growing love and trust between Lila and Reverend Ames is touching and convincing.
Although Lila revisits the characters of Robinson's previous books, Gilead, a Pulitzer prizewinner, and Home, a finalist in the American National Book Awards, and brings a certain completeness to their journeys, the book stands well on its own as a powerful search for the meaning of life as well as a touching and unlikely story of love and, ultimately, hope
Lila is a really beautiful book: beautiful prose, beautiful story; morally beautiful too. After reading it the world seems more dazzling, fuller of wonder and mystery than it did before, as if you were newly in love. I wish I could persuade everyone who ever buys a book to read this one
Lila has a power beyond words
Robinson brings [the story] to pulsating life in prose of great and luminous beauty . . . a book that leaves the reader feeling what can only be called exaltation
Robinson is a glorious writer . . . This novel, different in tone from its predecessors, stands beautifully alongside them
Mesmerising . . . reminiscent of the great Victorian novelists . . . Robinson's exquisitely wrought prose resonates
There is no one quite like this American writer, or quite as good as her . . . extraordinarily fluent and pitch perfect prose
Lila is a deeply affecting exploration of existence, love and the inevitability of loneliness. And although enriched by the two preceding books, it has the strength, beauty and originality to be read, enjoyed and appreciated as a standalone work. Written in beautiful, poetic prose, it's a remarkable achievement
Deeply moving, almost transformative . . . frank and direct, but occasionally moved to ecstasy by the spirit
Robinson's writing can light up consciousness, and make even the most passing thoughts feel indelible. Her older sister in American literature is Emily Dickinson
Her questioning books express wonder: they are enlightening, in the best sense, passionately contesting our facile, recycled understanding of ourselves and of our world
The Gilead novels provide insights into a people whose fates are bound to the land they live on. Iowa must be proud to have such a chronicler among them
Subtle shifts of loyalties, strange moral priorities make [Robinson's] books compellingly powerful
Robinson writes beautifully and, as a sophisticated religious thinker, asks searching questions about faith and doubt
Lila is a deeply affecting exploration of existence and love
As a reader you feel very well looked after by Marilynne Robinson: you are knocked out by the weight of thought, the care, the worry she puts into her work. You find yourself wandering into vast new rooms, as if you're in a fabulous museum you've dreamt up for your own pleasure. There's really no one else writing like this today . . . Lila is just so damnably beautiful
Searching and full of grace
One of the finest writers in America
Measured and lyrical; the sound of this book is akin at times to the Cormac McCarthy of The Road . . . Robinson writes brilliantly about the way people dance warily around each other, never quite coinciding, stricken with longing and love
Robinson has made a world so palpable and full that each book can stand alone...Taken together, these books will surely be known as one of the great achievements of contemporary literature
A masterpiece . . . Lila is a superb creation
Tinged with heartbreaking beauty
My novel of the year can only be Lila by the inimitable Marilynne Robinson . . .my favourite living author and this once again demonstrates her remarkable gift for psychological depth
One of the greatest living novelists . . . [Lila is] just as wise, moving and genuine as its predecessors
Lila was the book of books this year, an amazing achievement
Intricate and beautiful
Robinson explores eternity, and she does so in a quiet, ruminative style that takes over your heart as well as your head. Once you've fallen under her spell, she's not just mesmerising but indispensable
Exquisitely observed, an ultimately optimistic journey through the corrosive power of shame to divide and distort