Acts of God

Acts of God

Ellen Gilchrist

Language: English

Pages: 272

ISBN: 1616205725

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


In her first story collection in over eight years, National Book Award winner Ellen Gilchrist presents readers with ten different scenarios in which people dealing with forces beyond their control somehow manage to survive, persevere, and triumph, even if it is only a triumph of the will. From the very young to the very old, in one way or another, they are fighters and believers, survivors who find the strength to go on when faced with the truth of their mortality. And they are given vivid life in these stories told with Ellen Gilchrist’s clear-eyed optimism and salty sense of humor.

“Reading Ellen Gilchrist is addictive . . . Her new work is filled with good people who show fortitude and even heroism under duress . . . In this age of edgy irony, her warm-hearted view of humanity is refreshing.” —NPR.org

“Gilchrist manages to cut through the loud tussle of the world to present truths made even more striking by how conventional they are . . . The stories in Acts of God are great postcards from the world of Ellen Gilchrist. It’s a world of war and strife and surprises, and it is, yes, marvelous to behold.” —The New York Times Book Review
 

“Refreshing, engaging, and inspiring.” —Library Journal                                  
 

“Beautiful, smart, phenomenally rich.”—Booklist, starred review
 

“Gilchrist is at her best when the wry and satirical mood strikes her, especially when she is pricking the balloons of pride that the white Southern upper middle class inflates in its own honor . . . The best of the stories in Acts of God rank with the best in her first collection and in her second, Victory Over Japan, for which she was awarded a richly deserved National Book Award.” —The Washington Post 
 

“The salty wit of [her] characters will make you laugh; their bravery can be breathtaking.”—Birmingham magazine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

headquarters of the ballet competition, or you can call the governor of Mississippi or our senators. Call the governor. His name is Haley Barbour and he’s a friend of mine. He used to be head of the Republican Party but you aren’t an American so maybe you don’t know what that is.” “All right. I think that pretty much explains it. They said you wanted to get things from the suitcase. Could you tell me what you want and we’ll have someone find them for you?” “I want a change of underwear. Some

croissants and being here, glad to be alive in the only world there is, alive and eating and still breathing and not afraid really of anything that might happen next. We were Americans, for God’s sake, we weren’t in the habit of being afraid. The Dogs September 14, 2002 Dear New Neighbors, I was out in my yard this afternoon and noticed the man you hired to repair the fence between our property. It’s my fence by the way, but I’m glad to share it. Let me introduce myself. My name is Rhoda

carefully along the curved edge and stopped and looked up at the stars and acknowledged their magnificence. Then she took three woozy, unstable steps and fell. She saw the white light but it was not as brilliant as it was the time the car went off the mountain road in Wyoming in the snow or the time the company plane crashed in Virginia. Then she was cold, so very, very cold, and upside down in water, and then, mercifully, for there is a merciful god for those who want him, the water threw her

waiting when she came onto the side porch. “A vision,” he said. It was something he’d read once in a book and it always worked. Cecelia grinned like a girl and let him put his arm around her and steer her out the door and down the two steps into the waiting car. He kept one hand around her waist and another on his cane and somehow managed all this without it seeming labored. They drove out the long, packed gravel driveway to the two-lane asphalt road that curved around the fields of picked

him look at her. “I think anyone who was in Adkins on the day we found Rafael should always stay close friends, don’t you,” she added. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll do that. I’ll come walk with you one day. I have to get used to the campus since I’m going there in September. Do you know the names of different buildings up there?” “I can find them out on my iPod,” she said. “I’ll start learning them when I’m up there.” She’s going to talk to me all the way to Fayetteville, John Farley decided. Well,

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