Lila

Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a church in the small town of Gilead in Iowa – the only available shelter from the rain – and ignites a conversation and a romance that will reshape her life.

Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought up in a hardscrabble childhood of itinerant work. Together they crafted a life on the run, living hand to mouth with nothing but a lucky knife to protect them. When Lila makes her home in Gilead, she struggles to harmonise the life of her old makeshift family and their tough years with the gentle worldview of her husband which, paradoxically, judges those she loves.

Revisiting the beloved characters and setting of Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead and Orange Prize-winning Home, Lila is an unforgettable story about a girl living on the fringes of society in fear, awe and wonder.