LILA by Marilynne Robinson

Finished Tu 10/25/16 The October 2016 selection for The Contemporary Book Club


Last month's book, THIS IS YOUR LIFE, HARRIET CHANCE! was a sunny read, this month's was mostly cloudy.

Lila is a young woman of the Depression. The book is set in the mid-west (St. Louis, Gilead, Iowa).

Lila is rescued (kidnapped?) from a very poor and dysfunctional family by Doll.

Doll is a member of a 'crew' headed by Doane and Marcella. These people stick together out of survival.

Doll acts as Lila's mother, but will try to leave her when she believes that it might be in Lila's best interest.

Long paragraphs with little dialog.

Timeline can switch in a single paragraph.

The book is the third in a trilogy (THE GILEAD TRILOGY).
 Housekeeping (1980), Gilead (2004), Home (2008), and Lila (2014)

Reverend John Ames meets Lila and after a strange and distant courtship, they marry. And Lila becomes pregnant.

They have a son, and the novel ends with Lila in an unsettled state. She isn't sure whether her 'wandering youth' might resurface and she might find it irresistible to take her boy and leave.

Reverend Ames wants only what Lila wants and he realizes that since he is old (68) Lila will probably have another husband.

Lila is attracted to Ezekiel, book of the bible

 "a dissenting view," critiquing the Christianity that Robinson writes about as "gospel thin, exiguous, a story slight and wanting, and Flannery isn't here to say so."

I doubt that this novel will have many rabid followers at the book club meeting tonight.

After the meeting-
The members liked this book more than I did, and after thinking about, I guess I liked it more than I thought. A few days later I got GILEAD and am reading it now (Nov 2nd).