Vroege RecensentenEllen Gilchrist

New Orleans' tremendous literary tradition shines bright in this outstanding collection of stories from some of the best writers in American history. Julie Smith has masterfully curated this volume with stories published as early as 1843 and as recently as 2012. Classic reprints from: James Lee Burke, Armand Lanusse, Grace King, Kate Chopin, O. Henry, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Shirley Ann Grau, John William Corrington, Tom Dent, Ellen Gilchrist, Valerie Martin, O'Neil De Noux, John Biguenet, Poppy Z. Brite, Nevada Barr, Ace Atkins, and Maurice Carlos Ruffin. From the introduction by Julie Smith: "A glittering constellation of writers have passed through New Orleans--including Mark Twain, Sherwood Anderson, O. Henry, even Walt Whitman, to name some of the not-so-usual suspects. Then there are the ones whose sojourns here are better known, the ones on whom we pride ourselves: Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Ellen Gilchrist, James Lee Burke. It was an anthologer's feast--just about everybody who came to New Orleans wrote about it. But there were surprises... If you're from New Orleans, the neighborhood theme resonates like Tibetan temple bells. And yet, surely every city has similar 'hoods, similar behavior patterns, similar travails--and has had them forever. 'Indeed,' wrote Voltaire, 'history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.'"

Critically acclaimed writer Ellen Gilchrist, winner of the National Book Award, returns with her first story collection in eight years. In Acts of God, master short story writer Ellen Gilchrist has crafted a collection that takes us into eleven scenarios in which people dealing with forces beyond their control somehow manage to survive, persevere, and even triumph. For Marie James, a teenager from Fayetteville, Arkansas, the future changes when she joins a group of friends in their effort to find survivors among the debris left when a tornado destroys a neighboring town. For Philipa, taking control of her own fate is the greatest act of courage she can imagine, and the most difficult. For Eli Naylor, left orphaned by a flood, there arrives the understanding that out of tragedy can come the greatest good. In one way or another, all of these people are survivors who find the strength to go on when confronted with their own mortality, and they come alive in these stories, told with clear-eyed optimism and a salty sense of humor. As a critic in the Washington Post wrote in reviewing an earlier work, “To say that Ellen Gilchrist can write is to say that Placido Domingo can sing. All you need to do is listen.”

The women of the Hand family are no strangers to either controversy or sadness. Those traits seem, in fact, to be a part of their family's heritage, one that stretches back several generations, through many decades, and many wars. For Louise Hand, it means coping with the possible loss of her lover, who has vowed revenge for the injuries his twin brother suffered in Iraq. For Winifred Hand, the loss came when her fiancé perished in the World Trade Center. And for Olivia Hand, the strong-willed and independent newspaper editor, the war had been simply a subject for editorials, until her own newly wed husband gets called up for service. With prose that is often wry and always direct and immediate, Ellen Gilchrist gives voice to three women on a collision course with a distant war that, in truth, is never more than a breath away. As the Washington Post has said, "To say that Ellen Gilchrist can write is to say that Placido Domingo can sing. All you need to do is listen."