Fall 2009 » In Review » I, Rhoda Manning, Go Hunting with My Daddy

I, Rhoda Manning, Go Hunting with My Daddy

March, 2009

Ellen Gilchrist
Little, Brown and Company

Already nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, English Professor Ellen Gilchrist's latest collection of stories revisits some of her best-loved characters and introduces new faces as well. The collection begins with several stories told by Rhoda Manning - a series of perspectives from various ages as she reflects on her father, his shaping of her life. The collection then progresses through the stories of other characters to reveal the influence of family, friends, even enemies.

As in all her works of fiction, this book hums with vibrant personalities - the characters amounting to co-conspirators in Gilchrist's exuberant outlook and style. But the new collection contains an ominous overtone unseen in her previous work: the rumble of catastrophe in each of her characters' lives.

Fans of Gilchrist need not worry, however. The author fills this collection with stories about loneliness and terror - stories titled "The Abortion," "Remorse," "Entropy," and "Alone." But in the end, she lifts her characters and her readers from the dark. She finishes the collection with "Light Shining Through a Honey Jar" - a story about that moment when doubt and fear quiet into consciousness and leave us, if not brilliant, illuminated.