EMAIL THIS EmailHi all, Thought some may find interesting. Anyone scanning Gilead yet? Allison 'Gilead' captures Pulitzer Prize for fiction By Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY NEW YORK - The novel Gilead and the Broadway drama Doubt, a parable, which both deal with religious beliefs and doubts, won Pulitzer Prizes on Monday. ( Extremism under scrutiny: Marilynne Robinson's Gilead examines polarization in society. Marilynne Robinson won the fiction award for her graceful and thoughtful novel about a 76-year-old Iowa minister looking back at his life and his forebears. John Patrick Shanley won the drama prize for a play that deals with a priest suspected of molesting a child and with a nun who takes him on, defying a patriarchal church. In journalism, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times each won two prizes. The award for investigative reporting went to the Willamette Week of Portland, Ore., with a circulation of 90,000, for exposing a former governor's sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl. Robinson, 61, who previously won a National Book Critics Circle prize for Gilead and the PEN/Hemingway Award for her 1981 debut, Housekeeping, said of winning a Pulitzer: "It's an award you've heard of your entire life. But I'm aware there are lots of good books, and there is always something accidental when one is singled out." Gilead is written in the form of a letter the Rev. John Ames, in failing health, is writing to his 6-year-old son in 1956. It deals with the minister's life and the lives of his father and grandfather, both of them preachers. One is a pacifist, the other is a gun-toting abolitionist. Robinson, who teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in Iowa City, says the novel reflects her belief that "America is quite a religious country, but it's the extremes that have taken over the public discussion. I think many people have a different experience and understanding." Shanley, 54, said he was 'floored" when he heard the news. "If you work in the entertainment field, you're always surprised when things go well. You have to gear yourself toward disaster in order to survive." Of his play, he said: "I think that there are certain issues on the table in this time we live in. ... There are many people of conviction who live in the cemetery of ideas. ... People who entertain doubt are living in the combustion of life ... I think it may reflect that we're tired of people being utterly certain of where they stand all the time." The prizes of $10,000 each are awarded by Columbia University upon the recommendation of an 18-member Pulitzer board. In lieu of the cash prize, the winner in public service receives a gold medal. Contributing: Elysa Gardner