Ellen Gilchrist

by Mary A. McCay

As a writer of novels, short stories, poetry, and journalism, Ellen Gilchrist combines the best of the Southern tradition with a unique voice that speaks to contemporary readers across the land. With her first collection of short stories, In the Land of Dreamy Dreams (1981), Gilchrist attained widespread critical and popular success; to date she has produced close to twenty books, including Victory over Japan, winner of the American Book Award, and Falling through Space, a compendium of her broadcast journalism for National Public Radio. That Gilchrist is "a master of portraying the paradox of the independent woman" is the premise of Mary A. McCay's Ellen Gilchrist, the first book-length study of the writer's work. Though Gilchrist disavows feminist labels, McCay argues, she centers on women's experience in salient ways and reflects an intriguing contrast between her stated position and the more liberal terrain of her imagination. In a detailed introduction, McCay examines autobiograph