Last month our Fiction Book Club read Caperton Tissot’s On Thin Ice, a lively local novel that sparked a great conversation about small-town life and the truth behind Adirondack Great Camps. We were graced by a visit from the author!
For our next meeting, we’re turning to two American classics that speak—each in their own way—to faith, family, and legacy. We’ll read Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, a luminous novel told through the reflections of an aging minister writing to his young son. It’s a meditation on love and grace.
Our short story this month is Ernest Hemingway’s “Fathers and Sons,” a brief but piercing exploration of memory and generational distance. You can download a PDF of it here.
Order Gilead from Bookshop.org, or stop by Snowfort—we’ve got copies on hand!
Still reading? Here’s a bit more of a summary of Gilead.
Gilead is a reflective novel narrated by Reverend John Ames, an elderly Congregationalist minister in 1950s Iowa who writes a long letter to his young son. As Ames looks back on his life—his faith, his late marriage, and his relationships with his father and grandfather—he grapples with questions of grace, forgiveness, and what it means to live a good life. Through his quiet, luminous voice, Marilynne Robinson explores the beauty of ordinary existence and the weight of generational memory.