In this moving new novel from celebrated author Nickolas Butler, a Wisconsin family grapples with the power and limitations of faith when one of their own falls under the influence of a radical church

Lyle Hovde is at the onset of his golden years, living a mostly content life in rural Wisconsin with his wife, Peg, daughter, Shiloh, and six-year old grandson, Isaac. After a troubled adolescence and subsequent estrangement from her parents, Shiloh has finally come home. But while Lyle is thrilled to have his whole family reunited, he’s also uneasy: in Shiloh’s absence, she has become deeply involved with an extremist church, and the devout pastor courting her is convinced Isaac has the spiritual ability to heal the sick.

While reckoning with his own faith—or lack thereof—Lyle soon finds himself torn between his unease about the church and his desire to keep his daughter and grandson in his life. But when the church’s radical belief system threatens Isaac’s safety, Lyle is forced to make a decision from which the family may not recover.

Set over the course of one year and beautifully evoking the change of seasons, Little Faith is a powerful and deeply affecting intergenerational novel about family and community, the ways in which belief is both formed and shaken, and the lengths we go to protect our own.

Reader Reviews

Larry H

(5/5)

116

Nov 21, 2024

"How do you disagree with someone you love so fiercely?"By and large, life has been good to Lyle Hovde. While he and his wife, Peg, dealt with the crushing grief of losing their infant son, they had the good fortune of eventually adopting a baby girl, Shiloh.The teenage years were difficult, and there was a period during which she was estranged from them, but now she has returned home to their rural Wisconsin town with her six-year-old son, Isaac, in tow.Lyle and Peg are doting grandparents, and...

Marialyce (absltmom, yaya)

(4/5)

It is often difficult to look back upon a life and see all its pitfalls and unhappiness. However, for Lyle Hovde, and his wife Peg their life seems one of contentment. Their daughter, adopted when she was just days old is home again with her six year old son, Issac. The Hovde's had lost their son to illness when he was just a baby so they doted on Issac. It is Issac's grandfather through which this story is mostly told, and he adores Issac. Peg is a religious god fearing woman while Lyle has iss...

☮Karen

I adore this author, even more now than before. After winning his Shotgun Lovesongs out of the blue and then surprisingly loving it, I was excited to find this one on audio. It touches on so many topics I enjoy reading about, the characters are wonderful small town folk, and I thought the audio narrator was pitch perfect. This story could well have been written by the late great Kent Haruf, and I mean that as the highest form of praise for Mr Nickolas Butler. The ending was vague but there are c...

Dale Harcombe

Four and a half stars.Lyle Hovde lives with his wife Peg in rural Wisconsin. Despite some troubles years up with their adopted daughter Shiloh when she was growing up, Lyle is pleased to have Shiloh back home along with her five year old son Isaac. What does concern Lyle, is her involvement with a church that is far different to the church which Peg and Lyle attend. While Peg has a faith, Lyle mostly goes along out of habit rather than a deep abiding faith of his own. When the pastor at Shiloh’s...

Julie

No one writes about the Midwest and the people who live there better than Nickolas Butler.

Martie Nees Record

Genre: Psychological FictionPublisher: HarperCollins PublishersPub. Date: March 5, 2019This is a story about religious extremism and how it can destroy a family as well as a town. But this is not the loud and angry tale one might expect from such a premise. It’s a quietly and delicately penned. In many ways, Butler’s “Little Faith” reads like “Plainsong,” written by the acclaimed American author Kent Haruf. “”Faith" also has similarities to any novel written by Howard Frank Mosher, a much loved...

Nickolas Butler

139

Without a doubt the finest book I'll publish in 2019.

Jessica Woodbury

A thoughtful entry in the Quiet Midwestern books, pleasantly reminded me of Kent Haruf. But mostly I really enjoyed the look at faith and conflicts because of faith. This is a particular interest of mine, something I'm writing about myself (and why I have a "religion" shelf on goodreads). It's uncommon to see modern fiction really dwell on this topic in a way that feels empathetic. Lyle has gone to church his whole life though he doesn't consider himself a particularly religious man. But he's fo...

Kelly (and the Book Boar)

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/ How can it all be random, chance, a beautiful cosmic accident? How? Here’s a dramatization of what I imagine it would look like if I ever attended a Nickolas Butler meet-n-greet . . . . Little Faith is only my second experience with this author, but I’m most definitely willing to say damn this fella can write. The story here centers around Lyle and Peg – retirees residing in rural Wisconsin. Their daughter Shiloh has recently r...

Rebecca

(3.5) Butler follows in Kent Haruf’s footsteps with this quiet story of ordinary Midwestern folk facing a series of small crises. Lyle Hovde worked for an appliance sales and repair shop for 30 years until it closed down. Now in the autumn of his life, he is the only hired help at a local Wisconsin orchard but is more interested in spending time with Isaac, his five-year-old grandson. Lyle has basically been an atheist since he and Peg lost a child in infancy, which makes it all the more ironic

Alena

4 enthusiastic starsI was already a fan of Nikolas Butler after reading Shotgun Lovesongs, so I came to Little Faith expecting great things and I was not disappointed. Butler writes in a particularly midwestern cadence that feels honest and familiar. Better yet, he offers characters who are true, complicated and full of heart."Lyle held Peg’s hand even as he could hear her heart breaking, the way a cracked mirror falls in sharp shards, not all at once, but in that slow avalanche of fractures, so...

Kerry

Thanks to Harper Collins for this ARC. 4.5 rounded up. This was a quick and very haunting read. Can't tell you how quickly I got invested in these characters. When that happens I always ask myself why. The main story teller is a man but we are in a similar age demographic and have some similar ways of looking at the world. This author himself is younger (More midlife than what I think of as later life--never use the word geriatric) but he does a wonderful job of describing thoughts and concerns

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Little Faith

Little Faith

Little Faith

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