When Robinson published Gilead in 2004, the literary press reacted in much the same way to the sudden appearance of that book. A person’s bodily thereness-the indentation they leave on a pillow, their smell-is the supreme miracle, something so refulgent as to reduce the joys and pains that people produce almost, but not quite, to afterthoughts. They say, over and over again, to themselves or to each other, things like, “I came into the nursery one morning and there you were,” or “There she was anyway,” or “Here he was in her kitchen,” or “Here she was in middle age.” They repeat variations on these phrases throughout the four novels (thus far) of the Gilead series, like people who tap a nearby wall just to reassure themselves that it and they continue to exist. In Marilynne Robinson’s fiction, characters register the presence of other people as a constant surprise.
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