Dan W. Clanton Jr.

Reading the Margins

Arts & Literature

“This isn't a book that parses this or that obvious biblical citation in well-known, highfalutin pieces of literature. Those books have their value, but Michael Gilmour is aiming for something different. In Reading the Margins: Encounters with the Bible in Literature, Gilmour examines often offbeat and uncommon examples to show that creative writing can encourage readers to reflect deeply and can challenge us to develop empathy. His work illuminates allusions to and echoes of the Bible in the service of directing the reader to ponder profoundly and dialogically Scripture's call to embrace a more selfless inclusivity of those on the margins. Gilmour's chapter on Woody Guthrie's Bound for Glory demonstrates his approach nicely, as he mines Guthrie's quasi-memoir and discovers how it stresses compassion for the downtrodden, how it foregrounds the importance of learning oppressed people's stories, and how its characters model charity and kindness to "the least of these." Gilmour's deeply researched and compellingly written message is one we'd do well to heed in our time of divisiveness, partisan politics, and religious nationalism.”