Ep 705 - Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

Summary

Overdue Podcast Episode 705: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Release Date: June 2, 2025
Host: Headgum
Guests: Andrew and Craig

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Introduction to Gilead

In Episode 705 of Overdue, titled "Gilead by Marilynne Robinson," hosts Andrew and Craig delve into Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Skipping past the initial advertisements, the duo immerses themselves in a thoughtful and in-depth discussion about the book's themes, characters, and literary significance.

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About the Author: Marilynne Robinson

Andrew provides a comprehensive overview of Marilynne Robinson's background, highlighting her academic involvement and literary achievements. Born in 1943, Robinson is not only a celebrated novelist but also an esteemed essayist who contributed significantly to the Iowa Writers Workshop from 1991 to 2016.

Notable Quote:
"Her Christian faith has been a recurring theme in her work. She's a Congregationalist, which I don't know a lot about them firsthand." — Andrew [07:39]

Robinson's bibliography includes:

• Housekeeping (1980) – Finalist for the 1982 Pulitzer Prize
• Gilead (2004) – Won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005
• Home (2008)
• Lila (2014)
• Jack (2020)
• Reading Genesis (2024)

Robinson's work often intertwines themes of religion, morality, and humanism, offering deep philosophical reflections through her narratives.

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Exploring Gilead

Gilead is an epistolary novel set in the 1950s, narrated by John Ames, a 76-year-old Congregationalist pastor in the small town of Gilead, Iowa. The novel unfolds as a heartfelt letter to his seven-year-old son, reflecting on his life, faith, and familial relationships.

Key Themes Discussed:

1. Father-Son Relationships:
   The heart of Gilead lies in the complex dynamics between fathers and sons, exploring themes of love, misunderstanding, and legacy.

   Notable Quote:
   "A man can know his father or his son and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension." — Craig [35:42]

2. Religion and Morality:
   The novel delves into Ames's Christian faith, questioning how religion shapes morality and personal identity. Robinson portrays Ames as a man grappling with theological questions in the twilight of his life.

   Notable Quote:
   "The Bible, for me, is holy Writ. It's a very straightforward thing. Although I am not a literalist." — Andrew [16:12]

3. Historical Context and Abolitionism:
   Gilead, Iowa, is depicted as an abolitionist settlement with deep historical roots tied to the Underground Railroad and figures like John Brown. The town's founding ideals contrast with its stagnant present, raising questions about change and progress.

4. Personal Reflection and Legacy:
   Ames reflects on his relationships, particularly with his estranged father and his deceased wife, weaving personal anecdotes with broader existential musings.

Notable Quote:
"It's a journal that is meant to be a letter to his son. This dying preacher." — Andrew [09:12]

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Character Analysis

1. John Ames:
   The protagonist, a devout pastor facing mortality, seeks to impart wisdom and reconcile past regrets with his hopes for his son.

2. Jack Boughton:
   Ames's godson, whose return to Gilead brings underlying tensions and unresolved histories to the forefront. His presence challenges Ames's perceptions of forgiveness and legacy.

   Notable Interaction:
   "Ames is nervous that this man is around... what is this guy here? He's a bad guy." — Craig [50:47]

3. Edward:
   Ames's older brother, an atheist who distances himself from the family's religious beliefs, embodying the intellectual and ideological conflicts within the family.

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Literary Techniques and Style

Robinson employs a lyrical and contemplative narrative style, rich with poetic passages that enhance the emotional depth of the story.

Notable Passage:
"You are standing up on the seat of your swing and sailing higher than you really ought to with that bold, planted stance of a sailor on a billowy sea. The ropes are long and you are light and the ropes bow like cobwebs..." — Craig [62:17]

This passage exemplifies Robinson's ability to blend vivid imagery with profound introspection, creating a serene yet emotionally charged atmosphere.

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Comparative Insights

Andrew and Craig draw parallels between Gilead and other literary works, such as The Road by Cormac McCarthy, noting the universal themes of family, morality, and human connection.

Notable Quote:
"It reminds me of a way warmer, like Oprah also slapped the book club sticker on the road like the bleak apocalyptic father son tale the Road." — Craig [23:32]

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Final Thoughts and Recommendations

The hosts unanimously praise Gilead for its emotional resonance and literary merit. They recommend it to listeners who appreciate deep, reflective literature that encourages introspection and thoughtful discussion.

Notable Quote:
"It's a good book, I think... If you'd like to sit and have a think, is what I would say." — Craig [65:48]

Andrew adds, "Sometimes you just gotta make that brain think," emphasizing the book's capacity to engage readers intellectually and emotionally.

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Upcoming Episodes and Book Selections

Looking ahead, Andrew and Craig preview their next reads, including James by Percival Everett and the complete Peanuts series by Charles Schultz. They encourage listeners to join their Patreon for bonus content and engage with the podcast community.

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Conclusion

Episode 705 of Overdue offers a rich and nuanced exploration of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. Through insightful analysis and heartfelt discussion, Andrew and Craig provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the novel's depth and enduring relevance. Whether you're familiar with Robinson's work or new to it, this episode is a thoughtful guide to appreciating one of contemporary literature's most poignant works.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• "Her Christian faith has been a recurring theme in her work..." — Andrew [07:39]
• "The Bible, for me, is holy Writ. It's a very straightforward thing..." — Andrew [16:12]
• "A man can know his father or his son and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension." — Craig [35:42]
• "It's a journal that is meant to be a letter to his son." — Andrew [09:12]
• "You are standing up on the seat of your swing and sailing higher than you really ought to..." — Craig [62:17]
• "It reminds me of a way warmer... the bleak apocalyptic father son tale the Road." — Craig [23:32]
• "Sometimes you just gotta make that brain think." — Andrew [65:56]

---

For more insights and discussions, visit OverduePodcast.com and follow them on social media at @overduepod for updates and community interactions.

Transcript

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

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[Craig]

That's exactly. That's how mobile should work.

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[Craig]

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Upfront payment of $45 for 3 month 5 gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first 3 months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

[Craig]

While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy.

[Andrew]

Away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.

[Craig]

Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name is Andrew.

[Craig]

What did you.

[Andrew]

What happened there, Andrew?

[Craig]

Oh, you just gave me extra.

[Andrew]

I just given you a little bit extra because I don't have any ideas for an introduction.

[Craig]

That's okay. We could just tell, you know, tell our erstwhile listeners that it's not.

[Andrew]

Nope.

[Craig]

That we could just tell our.

[Andrew]

Esteemed.

[Craig]

What if we could tell they're gonna.

[Andrew]

Be erstwhile listeners if you don't figure it out a minute, we could Tell.

[Craig]

Our listeners, whether they be erstwhile or esteemed, that this is a weekly book podcast. It is a weekly where each week.

[Andrew]

One of us, sometimes you feel that more than other weeks, the march of.

[Craig]

Time read a book. One of us usually reads a book we haven't read before, and we tell the other person about it. And you, the listener at home, can nod along and go, hmm, and ha. And do your dishes or whatever.

[Andrew]

Interesting. Yeah.

[Craig]

That you do. While you listen to podcasts, you can look knowingly at your partner who you've made listen to your favorite podcast, and they're opening it, doing this, and you're going, don't know how this is going to go.

[Andrew]

And you'd be like, this is. They've got it. They still got it.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

This is building.

[Craig]

Pumping your fist in the air, going, this is what I like.

[Andrew]

The voice are back there.

[Craig]

There is a boy in this book and he is back in town. It is like. Yeah, it actually is like a whole thing. So we can. We'll talk about that.

[Andrew]

Does he go down to Dino's?

[Craig]

He doesn't, I don't think, start any fights. Dinos in this book.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

He does some things that would cause fights.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Usually, yeah. We'll talk about the boy who came back to town.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Name is Jack, like any good boy who came back to town.

[Andrew]

What did you. What did you. What did you read? Did you say already?

[Craig]

No, I didn't. I read Gilead or Gilead. Gilead. Just do Gilead by Marilyn Robinson, a book I never heard of, but I had never read. I haven't read anything else by Robinson. I know our.

[Andrew]

We're doing James by Percival Everett for next week. And the name was like, is this gonna. Is this like a Handmaid? Is this some kind of Handmaid's Tale thing? No, because I don't know why I was just thinking about that version of Gilead instead of like the other, you know, the other version.

[Craig]

We did get a. A discord message. Patreon.com overdue pod if you want to join the Discord. Mary Garth asked, did you choose this one to take advantage of the SEO from the Handmaid's Tale series finale? No.

[Andrew]

No. Is there SEO from that?

[Craig]

I feel like that question embedded in it.

[Andrew]

Susanna, who's like a dead ender for almost every TV show she ever started, is still watching Handmaid's Tale. But I can't think of anybody else I know who hasn't noped out of it, including me, like, many, many years ago.

[Craig]

Yep. Yep. But no we didn't. It was just on a list of possible books to read that fit into the reading cadence that we needed to hit to make June happen.

[Andrew]

Because. But. But if you're here because of SEO, because of the Handmaid's Tale thing, like, aren't you glad you. Aren't you glad you picked this one?

[Craig]

Yeah. So Gilead. Gilead, you know, it's a. It's a region in the Bible east of the Jordan river, basically. And one of the phrases that you might hear associated with it is that there's a balm in Gilead, or is there no balm in Gilead? And that is this, like trying to find.

[Andrew]

Just trying to find some lip smackers.

[Craig]

You're trying to find some, you know, universal healing lip smackers.

[Andrew]

They got some Burt's bees in this town. Like, what. What gives?

[Craig]

And I think as deployed in the Handmaid's Tale, it's, you know, ironic or sardonic or one of the onyx that means that it's opposite of what it is that you're meant to be like. Well, this isn't really a holy city. This is rather unholy. It presents itself as this universal societal cure, and it's actually killing everyone. You know, that's.

[Andrew]

There an irony in that? Yeah.

[Craig]

Yes. Here. There are also some. Some ironies to the town's name. We'll talk about the fictional small town in southwestern Iowa of Gilead and what it. What its founding represented and what its current state represents in the historical fiction, 1950s, in which this book is. Is set. But, yeah, that's. We're gonna talk about this book. Andrew, do you want to tell me a little bit about Marilyn Robinson first?

[Andrew]

I can do that. Yeah. She was born in 1943. She's an American novelist and essayist. She taught at our old friend, the Iowa Writers Workshop. She didn't merely attend. She's a manufacturer of Iowa Writers workshop writers from 1991 to 2016.

[Craig]

Long time.

[Andrew]

And then she was also a visiting professor and writer in residence at a bunch of other schools. She won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2005. I mean, just. Just one for this book. She's no Booth Sarkington. She just won the one award. But, yes, it was for Gilead, which came out 2004. Housekeeping, her first novel that came out in 1980, was a finalist for the 1982 prize, though she almost did the Tarkington.

[Craig]

That's what they all call it.

[Andrew]

Almost did a full Tarkington, Yeah. Her novels are housekeeping in 1980 Gilead 2004, home in 2008, Lila in 2014, and Jack in 2020. Home, Lila and Jack are all considered part of this Gilead sequence. I'm not sure what else.

[Craig]

Sequence?

[Andrew]

Yeah, sequence. Because Home is like. It's.

[Craig]

It's a parallel novel.

[Andrew]

It's the same. Yeah. Like time, but from a different perspective. And then the other ones I think are not. Are not that. But yeah, they're all part of the. The Gilead cinematic universe. In between all of these books she's written many essays and other works, her most recent being 2024's Reading Genesis, which is just on the topic of reading and interpreting the biblical book of Genesis.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Some other selections, she's got Mother Country Britain, the Welfare State and nuclear pollution in 1989, the death of Adam, essays on modern thought in 1998, absence of mind, the Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the self in 2010. You can definitely tell she spent some time in academia with some of these paper titles. When I was a child, I read books in 2012, the givenness of things in 2015 and then 2018's what are we doing here? A very 2018 question.

[Craig]

Wow. Robinson.

[Andrew]

And her Christian faith has been a recurring theme in her work. She's a Congregationalist, which I don't know a lot about them firsthand.

[Craig]

My in laws are Congregationalists.

[Andrew]

Well, maybe you know more about than I do, but it's my ga. I gather it's a variant of like Protestant Protestantism slash Calvinism that stresses each individual church's autonomy and ability to govern itself.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

There's probably some other stuff in there too, but my experience with the Baptist, like evangelical church that I came up in is like, I don't know, you can. It can be a Baptist church, but there, there don't have to be a lot of like common threads that hold each individual.

[Craig]

You're not beholden that together to a holy sea, like over. Across the ocean in Rome, you know.

[Andrew]

But like most of them are. Like most of these are. That was kind of the point of. Part of the point.

[Craig]

That's what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I mean. Yeah. But no, it is a. And there's, there's. From what I have gathered, not at all growing up in this church, but having some family members who've worked in it is that. Yeah, it's very rooted in specific practices of community that build each congregation and that there are a couple different, like splits along the way that I don't have the expertise to articulate. But yeah, there's a through line from the version of the individual that I think, you know, you get from the Protestant Reformation through to, like. Well, then how does an individual create community? And what is an individual community relevant to, you know, as separate from a larger religious state? I suppose, maybe. But yeah, it's. It's an interesting, like, through line of her work. I read a. I read a review of the Death of Adam, which is like a collection of essays that you mentioned and what her, you know, religion and then also just kind of what her mindset is in that, like, late 90s text. This is from the New York Times review. Robinson's deeper purpose is to remind us of the folly of cynicism and disillusionment. For some time now, she notes, quote, we have been launched on a great campaign to de. Romanticize everything, even while we are eager to insist that more or less everything that matters is a romance. Thus it is when a good man or woman stumbles, we say, I knew it all along. And when a bad one has a gracious moment, we sneer at the hypocrite, at the hypocrisy. It is if there is nothing to mourn or to admire, only a hidden narrative now and then apparent through the false surface narrative. And the hidden narrative, because it is ugly and sinister, is therefore true. End quote. So, yeah, she's. She's a lady with a strong sense of, or at least a strong interest in interrogating her morality and our morality. And this book being a longish, not a very long book, but for a letter, it's pretty long. It's a. It's a journal that is meant to be a letter to his son. This dying preacher. You get. She allows herself the space to ruminate on some theological questions that would be natural for a man at that point in his life to ruminate on.

[Andrew]

Yeah, there are some. The things that she sort of values and finds interesting about her faith and about like the, the church and the. As an institution, the people who like lead churches. It's interesting. I found this. There's this interview that she did in March of 2005. So it was on like the tail.

[Craig]

Of this book press tour.

[Andrew]

But, yeah, Pulitzer victory lap. She's being talked to because this book had come out for pbs. It's for. For the Religion and Ethics News weekly. And she is talking about the character of the preacher who's in this book and talking about especially the kinds of preachers who would come out and start churches and like colleges and Things in. She keeps calling it the Middle west, which is hilarious, but she's talking about the Middle. She's talking about it like she's JRR Tolkien, but she's talking about the Midwest that we all know. She says the assumption behind any theology I've ever been familiar with was that there is a profound beauty in being simply in itself. Poetry, at least traditionally, has been an educing of the beauty of language, the beauty of experience, the beauty of the working of the mind, and so on. The pastor does indeed appreciate it. One of the things that is nice about these old pastors, they were young at the time who went into the Middle west, is that they were real humanists. They were often linguists, for example. And the schools that they established were then, as they are now, real liberal arts colleges where people studied the humanities in a very broad sense. So we attended one of these colleges.

[Craig]

We went to one of those colleges.

[Andrew]

Kenyan College, which was founded by Episcopal folks, but still, yes, Philander Chase was the man's name, but it became more like, progressive and less rooted in its religious founding later on. But then that had happened many decades ago by the time that we were finally there. But it's an appreciation for the humanities and for thinking about, like, art and philosophy and.

[Craig]

And different things, and even thinking about religion in a way that is not explicitly about recitation of dogma and.

[Andrew]

Yeah, and, you know, and so she said something a little later that just. It just made my brain think. So she's talking about what she. It made my brain go, which is a thing that my brain has not been doing exceptionally well lately. But it was just a contrast to my religious background, which was very. Like I mentioned, it was evangelical, but it's very like literalist, very like King James Version is like, literally the.

[Craig]

The thing that got said that translation.

[Andrew]

Of the Bible is the literal word of God. And like, there was a time when we were looking for a new pastor and he used a different translation of the Bible, and he was, like, pretty close to getting picked. And then they found out that he used a different translation of the Bible than he was out like it was. It's a serious thing with some kinds of people. But she says the Bible, for me, is holy Writ. It's a very straightforward thing. Although I am not a literalist. Literalism is a very bizarre phenomenon. Many people are literalists about, for example, the King James Version, which was published in 1611. Anybody who has ever translated anything knows there is no reason to be literalistic about a translation. Anybody who has read Any biblical scholarship knows that every scholar struggles over completely intractable problems with the original texts or what they have to work from. It's one of the great powerful, mysterious objects that have come down through history. This does not translate into literal interpretation for me.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And I just, I don't know, like, I think I would have. I find it easier to stay open to a version of Christianity that one like takes the parts about like treating people nice seriously to like the horror seriously, but also one that is more, that is more curious about like the not just reading a thing and then, and then spitting it out or like finding a passage in a thing that backs up some belief that you want to have and then spitting that out without considering like the whole thing, like holistically, but just, you know, taking, taking a more, I don't know, a more curious approach, I guess for. I don't want to like insult people who think differently, but it's just from.

[Craig]

My experience with my in laws, my mother and father in law, both of whom were Congregationalist ministers before they retired, anytime I've heard them preach or even just speak about their work, there's a lot of comparison. There's a lot of digging into the scholarship of things. There's a lot of. Yeah, like even just basic, like in the, in this version of it it was written this way and in that version of it it was written that way. And like maybe in between we can find something that speaks to us here right now while I'm talking about it and then we can, we can have another question later which is not how everyone likes to, to talk about religion or likes to talk about. No, whatever their texts are and things like that.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I just, like I did for me, encountering it and especially if you're thinking about like the early 2000s where I'm kind of going through this transition.

[Craig]

Where this book is being written too.

[Andrew]

Where like it's a lot of the sort of anti religion conversation is happening in the context of like you're a Bill Maher or Christopher Hitchens or these really, really obnoxious like online atheist people.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

Like, I don't know, like to be, to be questioning one's faith at that time involved, I don't know, like siding with a bunch of people who are just kind of like making fun of it or making fun of the contradictions of it. Where I think that there is also, I don't know, I would have been interested to like encounter a community where there was room to be like, yeah, the Bible is a, it is a book and that was written down by people. And like any book that was like written down by people and handed down and translated over the course of like many centuries, there are weird artifacts and like things that that process like introduced and that make it not make literal sense. But. But it's also, you know, the foundation of our religion and it kind of informs how we think about morality in the world and how people should be. And let's, let's do some more like discussion of the way that those things kind of bounce off each other. Does that make any sense at all?

[Craig]

I was reading. No, I was reading a little bit about Robinson and like her name came up in some articles about Christian humanism. And just as we've been. That's basically what we've been talking about.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Which I think is an interesting thing to come out in the mid aughts. Obviously she was writing about similar stuff in housekeeping back in 1980, but she doesn't. She goes another 20 years before another novel. And at that point you've had 20 years of this like really specific version of American Christianity that has become very political.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And taken up a lot of space and is also then fueling the exact thing you're saying is coming out of this very antagonistic atheist perspective.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Because if you're thinking to March 2005, like George W. Bush, this is pre Katrina, which kind of permanently tanked his presidency with most of the American public. But he's just coming off of a successful reelection campaign where he mobilizes this evangelical base and the religious right and especially does a lot of like fear mongering and about gay people in particular.

[Craig]

And the religion in this book does not feel connected with the political religious right of the moment in which this book is published. And like that to me, I think is instructive. I was trying to think about like the. This is a work of historical fiction that the narrator is 76 years old in 1957 and he is writing as far back as, you know, his own experience and stories he heard about his grandfather who was alive before the Civil War was like working with John Brown, purportedly based on it, based on a different, like an actual guy. But in the book it's not a real guy. And so my, like, I'm just thinking about like, what is it for this to be a. A novel about religion, among other things, also about fatherhood and about America in some ways that is published in the early aughts, that is set in the 50s, but also about the Civil War. And it's just kind of this like, story of this particular, you know, denomination with this particular family and its roots in abolition. And what are the limits of like, you know, how where do you take your religion and what do you use it to justify or what do you use it to question? And that's an interesting thing to come out of the moment of the arts, as you say, Andrew, because the like dominant political voice, the dominant religious voice in American politics is very different from that. It is not involving a lot of questioning of things.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And she says we can, this can take us out. I guess it's just on the topic of the, the father son thing and how that plays into the, the Christian themes. She says in the same PBS interview, I don't have the feeling that people need to be Christian in order to understand what the novel is and what it means and so on, to recognize it's about father son relations or parent child relations. In the New Testament, of course, that's the major metaphor for the situation of a human being in the world relative to God. I think that in using that metaphor, the New Testament is appealing to something that people profoundly and universally know, what it is to love a child and what it is to love a parent. So that's a big subject in the book.

[Craig]

That to me is why it got the Oprah Book Club, like nod. And I don't mind that.

[Andrew]

I thought you were gonna say the Pulitzer. Well, probably you were referring to the more lucrative and significant recognition that the book is. Probably both.

[Craig]

But I do think that the, it reminds me of a way warmer, like Oprah also slapped the book club sticker on the road like the bleak apocalyptic father son tale the Road. And I think that there is a, there's a through line between these two in that, in that notion and that it is this. Like I have there were a lot of very high profile recommendations that got made through that program that are like speaking to these kind of universal family experiences. And it's that way.

[Andrew]

There are also some in there that are about how, if you, if you think right, you get checks in the mail instead of bills. But like, you know, take the good with the bad, you take the good with the bad.

[Craig]

Let's take the good with the bad and take a quick break and then I'll talk more about the book itself.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

Oh, welcome back.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

Well, one thing I like about Squarespace, they don't make you code anytime. They don't make you code make a website and I like think I have to code. I don't want to code anytime.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

Oh, that feels like browser. I don't want that. I want a domain.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

So this novel published in 2004 as we said, won the 2005 Pulitzer.

[Andrew]

I don't know who is back in town.

[Craig]

Yeah, the boy wasn't back in town. We're going to talk about the boy who came back in town. It is an epistolary novel about a dying Congregationalist pastor in the small town of Gilead, Iowa.

[Andrew]

Epistolary sounds like a kind of Protestantism.

[Craig]

It does.

[Andrew]

It's just that it's similar to Episcopal.

[Craig]

It's just you have to sit there and you can't talk. You can only write letters to people.

[Andrew]

Well, I mean every, every sermon is just a letter from God in a way.

[Craig]

In a way. Think about it.

[Andrew]

If you think about.

[Craig]

Apparently is based on the real town of Tabor, Iowa or Tabor, Iowa, T, A B O R. And the grandfather that is written about in the book is apparently based a little bit on the real life story of a guy named John Todd who was a minister and a conductor on the Underground Railroad connected with John Brown Choo Choo and his, you know, violent operations into Missouri and West Virginia. Good old John Brown. The work is. The novel is informed by Robinson's study of John Calvin and his work the Institutes of the Christian Religion, a book that is name checked several times in the novel. And what is this town that we're in here, Andrew? It is.

[Andrew]

What is this town?

[Craig]

It was founded by abolitionists. It's like described as one of these, like, you know, kind of a fly by night underground railroad town. Like they just needed a place near Kansas where they could like set up their equipment before they're going to go into Kansas to like do some violent abolitionism.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

Or a place where you can, you know, successfully hide someone who is fleeing enslavement and getting this before the Civil War, of course. And so this town was like founded on these very specific principles that were not meant to be like. And this community will be here forever. Like it is serving a very specific purpose, a very noble one. And then the, the place it is kind of becomes a little stale. It seems a little odd that it's there in the first place. It's not like on a, it's not on a river. It's not like a bustling hub of some sort of trade route or anything. And so it is this like, you might call it dying, but that might be too hard. It's, at the very least, definitely not growing.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

And many people have left it over the, you know, 70 or 80 years that we talk about it in the novel. And the question posed kind of at the end for one of the characters is like, does it still have the ability to be the place of promise that it was? Could it still protect people who are, you know, the target of laws against, you know, specifically at the end of the novel against interracial marriage?

[Andrew]

The reasons that towns are founded or like thriving are interesting.

[Craig]

They're very, usually they're very roll the dice.

[Andrew]

In the old, in the olden days it was like, yeah, this is next to water. And so we're gonna put it down here so it's easier to get stuff. And then this one is like, well, we have ideological reasons why we want to found this town here. And now it's like, well, Mr. Beast lives here and it's his company town. And so that's why the town is prosperous and why it thrives is we have an influencer. Yeah.

[Craig]

The thing is, is that like the.

[Andrew]

River of the Internet runs through this town. And that's why it is the way it is.

[Craig]

I was gonna say what are the. What were the robber barons but their own like influencers with towns. But I suppose you're a little. I guess. Cause then it's like ok, natural waterways and then railroads and then you know, fiber optic cable. There's a big fiber optic node on this plot of land. We got to build a warehouse on top of it so we can turn people into drones or something. I don't know what he does, but yeah. So this, as I said, it's set in 1956. The main character and the narrator, John Ames, he's a, you know, congregationalist minister. He's 76 years old. He is dying of some sort of heart condition. And he has a wife who is like 30 years his junior. 30 or 40 years his junior. It's his second wife. And he has a. He has a 7 year old son. And so the novel is a letter to his son to be like, hey, I'm gonna die. And there's a lot of stuff I would like you to know about me, many of which. Many of these stories I'm not going to tell you now because you're too young or like I need to just think about some stuff and I would like for you to have access to it. And throughout that work, he is giving us everything from like. And today I watched a baseball game on the new TV they gave me and then I fell asleep and you were. And my wife was there and it was beautiful. And then. But also I'm mad that they're taking my books out of my office because I can't go up the stairs. And then you'll get long stories about his father and his grandfather and his godson. And those are the, like the heart of the novel. So. Yeah. Where do you want to start, Andrew? What. What would be useful for me to give you purchase into this tale.

[Andrew]

I mean, you know, it's, it's about. So what is it? It's about the father son relationship. I don't know how much it's about, like the, the pastor's relationship with the, the church or with his religion. I don't know how much it's about the town that it's set in. But, like, what is the, what's the big. What's the big thing that's trying to do?

[Craig]

The big thing it's trying to do is fathers and sons are different. Fathers and sons. That's true. Fathers be different from sons. There's. There's a quote. This book has lots of nuggets in it, lots of little. What did somebody. I think it was Mary Garth from the, from the Discord also said, I want to wrap this book around me like a blanket. It's not cozy in the sense that people typically mean that, but there's a deliberation and stillness about Ames's reflections that calms me even when the book makes me want to cry. And, yeah, there are parts of this book that I guess feel slow in the sense that it takes a while for a concrete kind of character plot through line to emerge. The first half of the book in particular has a lot of just, here's some tales about my dad or about my grandfather and how that relates to me and what it's making me think about. And then slowly but surely that funnels down into. And now this boy, Jack Boughton, has come back to town. He's my best friend's son. He's my godson, and I don't necessarily trust him. I don't feel good about the fact that I don't trust him because I'm a noble good guy and I don't know what's going to happen after I die. And if he sticks around and, like, is part of your life, my son, like, I don't know what that's gonna hold. And the. Over the course of the novel, he reveals and we, the reader learn why he has these misgivings about this dude Jack, but you get the sense it's like, it's not only is he like, oh, I'm gonna die and I feel bad that I'm not gonna be more of a part of my son's life, but he has these kind of specific concerns about, like, what will become of my wife, what will become of my son, and what are the forces in the world that he can't control that might, you know, harm them when he's gone? Or will they harm them? He doesn't know. So there is like he does do. Oh, that. What? I didn't even read the nugget I wanted to read. I got so distracted.

[Andrew]

Where's my nugget?

[Craig]

Here's your nugget. I'm going to find it in the bottom of the bag. I'm going to eat all the french fries first. Here's a nugget. You can know a thing to death and be, for all purposes, completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father or his son and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension. So this. This book has a lot of relationships. Most of the father and son relationships in this book have at their core a. I can never truly know this guy. Like I. I will never truly see the world the way he sees it. But we are connected. And what are we gonna do with that? What are we gonna. When will we be able to forgive each other for things that we consider trespasses? When we. When will we be on the same side of things? And like, what are the. What are the flashpoints that kind of cause those differences? So like, one of the earliest stories that Ames tells in the book is when he was 12 and he and his dad set off for Kansas to find the grave of his grandfather because his. After some big dust up his grandfather left town. And he and his father were not on good terms. But now he's gonna go find that. Got. Just gotta go find that grave. Just has one of those like. Gotta. Gotta settle that score. Gotta figure that out. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Gotta get to maintain my connection to this.

[Craig]

Yeah. And hope. And maybe by finding it kind of put to rest some sort of anxiety or turbulence.

[Andrew]

Maybe I'll find myself if I can find this. Maybe this grave.

[Craig]

And he doesn't necessarily. They go and they find a cemetery. It takes a long time, they find a cemetery. The whole cemetery is kind of messed up. So they spent some time fixing the cemetery. And it says, when we finished, my father sat down on the ground beside his father's grave. He stayed there for a good while, plucking at little whiskers of straw that still remained on it, fanning himself with his hat. I think he regretted that there was nothing more for him to do. Finally he got up and brushed himself off. And we stood there together with our miserable clothes all damp and our dirty hands. Our hands all dirty from the work and the first crickets rasping and the flies beginning to bother and the birds crying out the way they do when they're about to. Ready to settle for the night. My father bowed his head and began to pray, remembering his father to the Lord and also asking the Lord's pardon and his father's as well, like, okay, I gotta settle it up.

[Andrew]

But, yeah. And I get here and I'm like, well, okay, I guess.

[Craig]

Okay, I guess. And there's this, like, other beautiful image that happens where, like, his father's praying, and ames, who's, like, 12, he's like, wow, I'm looking at the sky, and the sun and the moon are both up and full at the same time. And it's. I guess it's like, that's, you know, when Luke is looking at the sky in Star wars and there's two sons, you know, it's.

[Andrew]

It is.

[Craig]

Music's playing.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I mean, Star wars would not have come out yet at this point in 1950.

[Craig]

Well, whatever. Well, maybe this. Yeah, that's fair. Anyway, it was like, Star Wars.

[Andrew]

Just. Maybe she's trying to imply that. That George Lucas, like, read this letter, and, yes, maybe Star wars based on that.

[Craig]

True. And the son is like, hey, dad, stop praying. It's, like, beautiful out. And they just have, like, a moment where they. They look at the sky, and it's, like, very pretty. It's a very pretty book. And, like, that is the way we're introduced to this fraught relationship between his father and his grandfather. And then you get all the backstory of it where his grandfather was this very violent abolitionist who, you know, was helping John Brown and ultimately, like, killed a guy in. Who came from the army before the Civil War broke out because he was trying to protect the operation. But he. He, like, shot him in the leg, and then the guy wandered off. So, like, he didn't. He. He knows that that guy died because no one ever came back to them and was like, hey, we found all your, like, hidden weapons or. Or whatever.

[Andrew]

Well, and getting shot in the leg. Well, yes, like, it's. It's just. It's gonna kill you. It's just not gonna do it. Like, right there.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yeah. And so his, you know, grandfather has this guilt, but then there's this bit where his. The grandfather runs back into town and he's got, like, multiple bloody shirts, and he, like, rides right into the. To giving a sermon and is, like, you know, leading this sermon about how, you know, their religion and their. Their duty to their neighbor is like a justification of a violent war, which, you know, the war for abolition. But it can be violent, and it can involve Killing and et cetera, et cetera. And Ames father, they're all named John Ames, which is why I'm trying to use the generations, because otherwise it would get confusing. His father is a pacifist and recoils from this. And they like, they can never bridge that gap. Like they are fundamentally. He is, he is fundamentally opposed to invoking their religion when it comes to justifying, you know, what would become the Civil War. And the grandfather is like, I had a vision from God where he came to me and told me that I needed to fight this war. I needed to go kill people to end the horror that is slavery. Like that. That's what needed to happen. And so there is this thing running throughout the book that is like, what are you comfortable? How do you wrap your brain and your, your, your sense of your own religion around the terrible stuff that happens and sometimes the like, bad things that kind of need to happen, maybe you could call it. And the narrator is also kind of just like, where are my lines of forgiveness? Where am I unable to let go of a grudge or would justify some sort of terrible behavior or could I ever sort of thing. And then you get the like. So the grandfather and the father are kind of unknowable to each other. And then the father has, I think, two sons, the narrator and his older brother Edward, who goes off to Europe and becomes an atheist and like, sends home all these books about atheism and why religion is bad and like, they never talk to each other directly about it. So instead the father just like, argues against his older son to his younger son, which is not a fun experience for our narrative.

[Andrew]

But that, that is sometimes how it goes. Intra sibling relationships get adjudicated. Ye just like different people complaining to the parents and then having those things filtered down or out, as the case may be.

[Craig]

So then the father who's like, you know, trying to stay connected to his son, starts reading all of these, you know, overtly atheist texts and other kind of different things that the brother is sending home. I think the book refers to it as like he's reading them. It felt like he was reading them with the intent to be persuaded or like wishing he would be persuaded. And I think the generous reading of that is like, he wants to stay connected to his oldest son.

[Andrew]

Well, let's, yeah, like you could say wants to be persuaded, but also just like, wants to under. Wants to understand.

[Craig]

Well, you're getting.

[Andrew]

Wants to see the perspective that he knows he can't get because you can't like, inhabit somebody else's Brain. But, like, maybe we can try, you know.

[Craig]

And when the. When Edward comes back from Europe, he and his dad, they ultimately leave Gilead, I think, to take their mother to Florida for her, like, rheumatism or something. And they're like, hey, you should probably leave this town, young John. Like, you probably shouldn't stay here for the rest of your life. And that never sits well with John. He reads it almost like his father's faith left him or was weakened. And he doesn't. He winds up defining himself against his father in that way. And he has this conviction to stay in this town for the rest of his life and minister in it in the church that his father abandoned or that he thinks his father abandoned and live his life the best he can. So now he is, you know, he. Ultimately he has a. He. He has a wife who dies in childbirth. So his wife and his daughter don't make it through childbirth. And then he is single for the rest of his life until he is 70, late 60s. And Lila comes in and sees, you know, just kind of. She's in her 30s. She comes into the church, sees that man preaching, and they have a connection and she wants to be baptized. He baptizes her. She's like hanging out in the church for a few months. Then is like, hey, you should marry me, sir. We should get married. And he does. And then they have a kid. And then that leads us to the. Where we are in the novel. So now he is. It's interesting to get his perspective as a father for this young boy that he will not get to be anywhere close to whatever the conflict his. His father and grandfather had. Okay. Instead he gets Jack Bouton.

[Andrew]

Joe must say Jack Bauer.

[Craig]

I almost said Jack Bauer.

[Andrew]

I didn't know. I couldn't tell what you were tripping over.

[Craig]

Well, I think.

[Andrew]

But I saw it happen.

[Craig]

I don't remember who it was in our discord who was like. Everyone in my reading group said that. Oh, it was Merry Garth again. Said that. Said the name differently. But I listened to the audiobook and it said bound. Jack Bowden's deal is. And this is revealed over the course of the novel. And I'm probably going to recount it out of order from the novel. But he. He's the son of. Of Ames best friend who is a Presbyterian minister, I think, and is Ames godson. His name is Jack. His. He's actually named John Ames after his full name is John Ames Bount Bouton, not Bounty, not Boynton.

[Andrew]

Boynton, yeah.

[Craig]

And kind of named him after John as like a sort of a friendly present to his friend who, who never had a kid, which doesn't quite sit right with John, but he can't quite refuse his friend that like awkward gift.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like if I had never had a kid and you had a kid and you're like, hey, this, this kid's named Andrew. Like it was kind of just make me feel bad.

[Craig]

Well, and imagine that. I imagine that I told you his name was Andrew during the baptism that I asked you to perform.

[Andrew]

Uh huh.

[Craig]

And I turn to you and go, hey, what are you calling this kid? You turn to me and you're like, hey, what are you calling this kid? I'm like, hey Andrew, I'm calling this kid Andrew. Yeah, that's the moment depicted in it.

[Andrew]

Like I would eventually get around to the point where I'm like, I acknowledge that this is, this is your effort at a nice gesture, but my first reaction, and the one that we're both probably gonna remember is the one where I'm like, oh, that's weird. That's weird. Why would you. That's weird. Don't do.

[Craig]

Sets him off on the wrong foot with this boy who I think, I don't think he's the youngest in the family. I could be mistaken, but he is kind of the golden boy. Even though he is basically a Dennis the Menace. There's stories of him lighting mailboxes on fire for fun. One time he stole a Model T, drove it as far as he could west out of town and when it ran out of gas, he just walked home. And then several people like from various towns came into illegal possession of that car and then ultimately drove it back into Gilead and got arrested. And no one ever knew who had stolen it in the first place except for Jack. And then he confessed to our narrator, of course, and he's just, he. When we hear the narrator, you know, writing to his son about like, I'm nervous that this man is around. He's in his 30s or 40s, he's, you know, you seem to like him. As I'm writing this diary, as I watch you, you know, he's playing catch with you. He's doing the things that I can't do. As a dying 70 year old. I don't know what his intentions are. Is he going to try to like replace me when I'm dead? And we, the reader don't know why he a. That's, that's weird. That's, that's a weird, you know, I wouldn't necessarily want anybody to Just slide right in like that. But you also like, he has this negative feeling to this guy that of course you're reading the book going like this is an upstanding dude who there's nothing else in the book presented that is like leading me to believe that he would have a made up reason for not liking or trusting this person. And he even seems upset that he doesn't like and doesn't trust this person. And then it is revealed that he, Jack had a, you know, he got a girl pregnant and then never just left town and never acknowledged the child at all. And Jack's family and John tried to take care of the, the family and of the girl and ultimately the kid died at like three from a wound that went septic. And it's just this thing that Jack has never spoken of out loud and never acknowledged to anyone. And now he's finally back in town after maybe almost a decade away. And our narrator doesn't know what to do with that information. And like what is this guy here? He's a bad guy. Or at least he has this like big disgrace and dishonor under his belt. And so the latter half of the book is like the two of them dancing around. Will they connect? How will they what. What is unspoken between them? And can Ames get to some sort of resolution with him before he dies for the sake of his own son?

[Andrew]

Maybe.

[Craig]

And that leads us to the thing I alluded to at the beginning of this conversation, which is Jack's new secret, is that he is Mary. He is common law, married to a black woman. Gilead is all white residents. There used to be. Well that's the thing that's interesting about it is it's right, it's this abolitionist settlement that has very high minded ideals about, you know, ending slavery. And then there were black people.

[Andrew]

But it is still a town in southwestern Iowa, isn't it?

[Craig]

Yes. And there were, there was a black community in the town. Ames assures us that the like fire that happened to that church was not one of persecution or was it was just an accident that happened.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

But then after that church was gone, the folks, the black folks in town left. There was, there was not a thing tying them to the community in the same way. So they moved on.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

And so Jack, who has come back for reasons known only to himself is he has this family, he has a wife and he has a son and they can't be married in, in Missouri, in St. Louis where he met her and not legally they can live together, you know, and so he Is wondering, could. Could I come here? Like, is that a thing that could happen?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And it's not a question he's comfortable asking openly. His father, old Bouton, is dying. He doesn't know if he can tell his father about this information. He doesn't know how his father will react. And ultimately, he just leaves. All he does is he talks with John Ames about it. Ames is like, hey, I don't know what would happen. But internally, Ames, you know, comes to a better understanding of his godson and ultimately gives him a blessing before he leaves that something he'd never done before. And the book kind of just ends with, like, jack's out there. Maybe something will come of that. Old Bouton's gonna die. His son's not gonna be there. That kind of stinks. I'm gonna die. My son is here. And I hope that the world he lives in is a good place and that he will be good in it.

[Andrew]

Okay?

[Craig]

And it's just like. I don't know. It's. I'm probably not in recounting just what kind of happens. I was struck by the Boughton thing emerging as a plot in the book because it did feel for a while that it was just gonna be like a series of stories about fathers and sons.

[Andrew]

And then all of a sudden, like, this thing is trying to happen.

[Craig]

All of a sudden, this thing is trying to happen, and there's a guy in town and we don't know where that's gonna go. And interspersed with it, she has, you know, there's like, a rumination on the Ten Commandments and, like, where honor thy father and mother fits in in the. Like. If you read them sequentially, you can read it as a series of commandments about your relationship to God and then honor father and mother, and then a series of relationships about commandments about your relationship to your fellow person. Like, people, it's like, that is the type of stuff that is what you said earlier, Andrew. Just like, interesting ways of thinking about this seminal text, the Bible. Like, what if we just sat around and thought about it and it's not about, like. And here's the part in the Bible that tells you why you'll die if you do xyz.

[Andrew]

Like, finally, someone is. Someone is thinking about the Bible. This is. This. This book is finally getting its due. It's what I think the Booth Darkington of religious texts. Like, it's been overlooked for so long.

[Craig]

As someone who is not particularly religious. The parts of it being this religious novel that work for me are that all of the sections where our main character is ruminating are tied to the pressing questions before him. Of I have my son to think about. I have my godson that I'm dealing with. I have my wife to think about. Like, he's not just idly sitting around thinking about what the next sermon he's gonna write is, right? Anytime we're hearing a story about a sermon he gave, it's like, and this is the time I gave a sermon that was way too personal and I felt like my pants were basically around my ankles and everyone could see, like my whole business. Like, like that's not the turns of phrase in the book, but like, he only talks about sermons he gave. If it's like he's maybe a little embarrassed about why he wrote it in the first place.

[Andrew]

Or I think, listen, I. If you wanted to be like a cool, innovative pastor and you wanted to give a naked sermon.

[Craig]

That's not what I'm saying.

[Andrew]

I feel, I just feel like it would create a vibe that nobody would forget.

[Craig]

It's a very different church, I think.

[Andrew]

Just a cool, avant garde, experimental church.

[Craig]

And then he's also constantly talking about critiques of religion. Like, the Edward, his older brother, is kind of a vector for that to get into the book. But then he's constantly talking about other authors he's read that are not of the church and, like, how it has informed his own, you know, sense of religion and things like that. And there's even a fun little section where he and Bouton are discussing, like, an article in Ladies Home Journal that is like a guy picking apart polling data of Christians and they're like notions on heaven and they're just kind of dishing on how bad they think the methodology of this poll and article are. Like, it's. It is interesting the way the book is, like, dealing in very heavy themes and morality that are gonna emerge from religion. But it doesn't feel like these characters are particularly precious about how they talk about it. They're very practical because they know, like, there's something in the act of ministry for these characters that is like very. It recognizes whenever you're talking to someone, you're meeting them where they are. If you're gonna do it, if you're gonna do it. Well, sure, yeah. So they don't, they don't come into every discussion of religion very high minded or. What's the word? Righteous.

[Andrew]

Sure, sure.

[Craig]

Things like that.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

The writing in the book is wonderful. There's a lot I haven't shared.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I could tell just from reading that interview with her that she's very like. She considers her words very carefully and puts them together in a way that. That is pleasant. She's very good.

[Craig]

One technique that she's very.

[Andrew]

Notwithstanding the Middle West.

[Craig]

Well, that's. Yeah. It's her own picadillo. She's very good at tacking a coda onto like kind of a little. A beautiful little passage. And then there's. So at one point he's like listening to baseball on the radio, which he. Which he believes is superior to watching it on tv, which I tend to agree with. Why do you.

[Andrew]

Why do you think that you can't see the butts? Like, what are you even. Well, okay, we're even doing.

[Craig]

I had forgotten about now that in the age of 8 you forgot about the butts. No. As an argument to hear. It's in the age of hd. Yes, you can see the butts and they're even better. Hd.

[Andrew]

Huge dumpers. More, more.

[Craig]

When you're listening to the play on the radio, you have to do like a little. And this book articulates. And I'm very grateful for Robinson for talking about it like you have to kind of see the play happen in your. In your brain. And you don't need to necessarily. Like, what does he say? He calls the TV a little two dimensional. Like you're not actually imagining the players in space.

[Andrew]

You're just kind of like, if only he could see. To get today's 3D 4K sets, you know, I'm talking about.

[Craig]

It was one day as I listened to baseball that it occurred to me how the moon actually moves in a spiral because while it orbits the Earth, the. It also follows the orbit of the Earth around the sun. This is obvious, but the realization pleased me. There was a full moon outside my window, icy white in a blue sky. And the Cubs were playing Cincinnati. She's just very good at like sticking the landing with a slight. Like. It's not even a reverend. It's just less formal than the rest of the poetry that came before it kind of.

[Andrew]

She doesn't talk about. You want to talk about full moons, though. Baseball and tv.

[Craig]

Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. You're clever. Today there is. I'll read two more passages. Actually, one I want you to read out loud because I want to know if you know what this means.

[Andrew]

You're just like. You need to contribute in some useful way. Here's a passage for you to read.

[Craig]

This is about. So the next two passages we're going to read are him talking about his seven year old son, whom he loves and he wants the world for. And this. When I first read it, I did not understand the joke that he is describing. Here he's talking about to T's father in this passage is the. The son's friend Tobias. So just read this passage to me, Andrew.

[Andrew]

Okay. I had an interesting talk this morning with Mr. Schmidt. T's father. It seems he overheard some inappropriate language. I'd overheard it too. In fact, since it has been the favorite joke between the two of you for the last week, I'll admit I didn't see the need to object. We said the same thing when we were children and emerged unscathed. I believe one of you asks in a naive and fluting voice, abcd goldfish. And the other replies in the deepest voice he can muster, a voice full of worldliness and scorn. L M, N O. L m N o Goldfish. What? And then outrageous and extravagant laughter. It is the l, need I say, that has disturbed Mr. Schmidt. Oh, the L is a cus.

[Craig]

Yeah, thank. Okay. You figured it out way quicker than I did. I stared at this for, like, minutes because it's like ABC to goldfish.

[Andrew]

Yeah, right.

[Craig]

L mno goldfish. And like, I did not get it.

[Andrew]

Yeah, no, it's a cuss. It's a cuss. I mean, it's without the little parenthetical at the end. I don't know that I immediately would have gotten. But with the parenthetical, I was like, oh, it's. This is. This is kids trying to find a way to cuss without. Just like when. When you. When somebody brings up, like, a dam, as in like a thing that obstructs the path of a natural body of water. And then kids go nuts with that.

[Craig]

Yeah. Okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

So that was one where I was like, has Andrew heard this joke before? This is gonna be one of those.

[Andrew]

I haven't heard that. I haven't heard that joke. But, like, I get it, I guess.

[Craig]

Sure. And here is a passage I'll read that is just. There's a lot. We're Andrew. We're fathers of sons, Cats in the Cradle and the Silver Spoon and whatnot. And there are just parts of this book that are just like, man, that's what I got. I got a little boy, too. Like, it's just like. It just reaches in there and it goes on your heart, you know?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

You are standing up on the seat of your swing and sailing higher than you really ought to with that bold, planted stance of a sailor on a billowy. Sea. The ropes are long and you are light and the ropes bow like cobwebs. Laggardly indolent. Your shirt is red. It is your favorite shirt. And you fly into the sunlight and pause there brilliantly for a second and then fall back into the shadows again. You appear to be altogether happy. I remember those first experiments with fundamental things. Gravity and light, and what an absolute pleasure they were. And there is your mother. Don't go so high, she says. You'll mind. You're a good fellow. Just like. Come on, man, Robinson. That. Yeah, that's what it feels like when fatherhood is treating you good, you know?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And there's. There's a lot of that peppered throughout the book.

[Andrew]

Not when your son is, like, telling you how he's, quote, told you something many times. No.

[Craig]

No, not. Not when your son sits on the floor at bedtime and tells you to leave the room while he would rather sit in the corner and just be upset at you. No.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

But, yeah, she's very talented at finding ways for this character's voice to lovingly depict the world. His son included, his wife included, just nature included. This is. It is not a book I read particularly fast, even though it is not a long book. And I think that's part of the reason, A. It spent me two hours. It took me two hours to decode the goldfish joke. But also, he was just sitting there.

[Andrew]

With a PB Sylvia board, like, trying to figure out what this meant.

[Craig]

But also just. Yeah, the turns of phrase that this character is capable of and the way that they relate to the characters is just really striking often. Yeah, it bears slowing down. And actually, like, you're not. This isn't like a novel where you're just like, let me see what's happening on the next page. That's. That's not the way it works. And sure, you will maybe be disappointed if that's why you picked it up. I don't know why you picked it up, if that's what you're looking for. But, yeah, it's a good book, I think, from the. From what I understand of the other entries, Gilead Cycle in the Gilead sequence or whatever. Home is about the Boughton family. It's from their perspective. But I think it largely covers what is covered in this book, which probably means it covers some of the child that Jack, you know, never acknowledged. And that whole thing. Lila is about John's wife, and so is about their backstory a bit more. You get snippets of it in this book, but it is not the focus of the book. And you get some of her past and where she came from. And then Jack is focused on Jack's time in St. Louis, where he meets his wife Della. And I would presume maybe also involves his, like, trips to Memphis to see her family who do not approve of him at all, this white boy showing up kind of thing. But also, also, like, she's a minister's daughter. And, you know, that all makes sense to him. So, yeah, I go read, read this book. If you would like to sit and have a think, is what I would say.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

If you'd like to sit and have your brain think, as Andrew said earlier.

[Andrew]

Sometimes you just gotta make that brain think.

[Craig]

Sometimes you got to make your brain think. That's it. If you've read this book, Andrew, thanks for letting me tell you about it. Of course, obviously, if you, the listener, have read this book and you have thoughts you want to share, send us an email. Overdue podmail.com hit us up on social media at overdue pod Instagram bluesky is where we're spending our time. Thanks to Nick Lauren, just who composed our theme music. Andrew. Folks want to know more about the show. Where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overdue podcast.com is the old Internet website. Up there we have links to the books that we have read and the ones we are going to read. Our June schedule is finalized or pretty close. You want to tell them you want to give it, give it, give it to them.

[Craig]

So we just read Gilead by Marilyn Robinson. Next up is James by Percival Everett. Then Stone. Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. Follows. I think we'll be talking with the folks over at Too scary. Don't watch. That's the plan. There's Too Scary.

[Andrew]

Didn't watch.

[Craig]

Didn't watch. Oh, yeah.

[Andrew]

I want to make sure we don't recommend, like, an alternate similarly named but totally too scary.

[Craig]

Didn't watch. And then Peanuts by Charles Schultz. We're gonna do the complete Peanuts, volumes one and ten.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

So we get like, kind of the where. Where all our friends came from and where they went.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I don't know if there's potential in a Peanuts Long green. I'm not sure what we call it. We call it mixed nuts, I guess. And we'd be the nuts. And also, here's another URL that you can type in the old address bar patreon.com overduepod get access to our Discord server to bonus episodes early, to bonus streams where we just chat and play some games. We've been having a more sort of like casual vibe lately that I think has been going pretty good. And you, you and listen the the show lore that you will hear on some of these streams. It's things that we would never talk about on the main feed.

[Craig]

Things that we would be reticent to talk about on the main feed.

[Andrew]

Things that it would take us several years to talk about on the on the main feed. But yeah, when you support us on Patreon, you support the show directly financially. You pay for books, you pay for equ, you pay for all kinds of other stuff that makes the show go. So if you are doing that already, thank you so much. If you're thinking about doing it again. Patreon.com overdue pod to see all of the things that you can get in exchange for your support. I think that's it.

[Craig]

That's it. I'm excited to hear about James next week, Andrew.

[Andrew]

Yeah, me too. I'm excited to hear my mouth say about him. Until we talk to you next week, everybody, please try to be happy. That was a head gum podcast.

[Craig]

The new McCrispy strip is here. Dip approved by Ketchup Tangy barbecue, Honey mustard, honey mustard, Sprite, McFlurry, Big Mac sauce, double dipped in buffalo and ranch, More ranch and creamy chili. McCrispy strip dip now at McDonald's.