This is a follow-up to “Gilead “, Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, but “Home” is an entirely independent, deeply affecting novel. Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father, Reverend Robert Boughton. Soon her brother, Jack—gone for twenty years—comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace. A bad boy from childhood, Jack is an alcoholic who cannot hold a job. He is charming and brilliant, and clearly his father’s favorite, but he cannot find his way in town. He is at odds with his godfather (and namesake), John Ames, though he manages to forge a bond with his sister. This is a moving novel about families, family secrets, love, death and faith. Robinson’s writing is wonderful, but the novel didn’t stir me as much as her earlier work, “Housekeeping.”