Guardian Books podcast: Marilynne Robinson talks about Gilead to book club

This week, on a visit to the UK, Marilynne Robinson came along to the Guardian Review Book Club to talk to Professor John Mullan about her novel Gilead . Set in rural Iowa, it is the letter of aging congregationalist minister John Ames to his young son from his second marriage, written as a loosely-connected series of thoughts, memories and religious homilies. Robinson is an active member of the Congregational United Church of Christ in Iowa, as well as an academic; she teaches literature, creative writing and sometimes theology. Professor Mullan began by asking her whether it was "useful to have God in a novel".