For the Love of God (My Life Spread Thin)

Marion Gillon has given us a gorgeous, sprawling memoir that reads like a novel you don’t want to end—and a rare gift beyond memoir: a philosophy of joy forged in the fires of Jim Crow Alabama and an acid-lit revelation in a Montreal movie theater in 1967. Growing up poor, Black, and gay, Gillon moves through the crossroads of history—Freedom Summer Mississippi, Harvard Yard, Haight-Ashbury—with arms flung wide, gathering people the way others collect souvenirs. Along the way we meet Medgar Evers, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Boston mob enforcers, defrocked priests, drifters, teachers, and lifelong friends.His life feels almost unbelievable, yet what emerges is something deeply grounded: a profound meditation on mortality, connection, and the radical act of showing up. For eighty years, Gillon has tested a single, stubborn proposition: that the universe was made for love, and our task is to answer its loneliness one encounter at a time. Funny, heartbreaking, and spiritually daring, For the Love of God (My Life Spread Thin) is the memoir America needs now. Read this book. You’ll be better for meeting Marion Gillon. Read more