Reverend Boughton

Reverend Robert Boughton is the patriarch of the family. The era is the mid to late 1950's when racial tensions and civil rights movements have become contentious. Living in the small town of Gilead, the Reverend Boughton doesn't think that what happens in the outside world has much impact on his small town, his family, or his congregation. However, he is quite mistaken.

As the story opens he has been a widower for many years. His children, all eight of them, have left Gilead long ago to start their own lives. The reader doesn't learn about each child, but only those that seem to stick in his memory the most. One of those would be his son, Jack, whom he named after his best friend Jack Ames, his neighbor and fellow pastor in the town. Jack has been one of those children that tested every boundary and...