In the Land of Dreamy Dreams, Ellen Gilchrist's first collection of short stories, was published in 1981 to wide critical acclaim; her next collection, Victory over Japan, won the National Book Award. Since then, she's gone on to publish several more collections, as well as novels, poetry and nonfiction. Now she's back with Acts of God, a collection of wistful, reflective and accomplished stories.
It's a book that comes "out of my later years," Gilchrist tells us, and the past features prominently in many of these stories. They are all set in the South, in places like Biloxi, Fayetteville and New Orleans; most of the main characters are women. In "Miracle in Adkins, Arkansas," a group of high school students drive to a small town devastated by a tornado. Searching the site, they part the branches of a fallen tree, and a baby, tossed there by the storm, begins to scream. It affects them greatly. Our narrator tells us, "I need to remember all this."
In "Jumping Off Bridges into Clean Water," a group of adults think about the time when they were young and jumped off a bridge into the roaring river, while in "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," three elderly ladies share stories about their pasts while they drink for free in an airlines' guest lounge.
All of these stories are classic narratives. There are no literary pyrotechnics here nor obscure experimentalism--simply heartfelt tales exquisitely told. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher