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by Jon
Parrish Peede At the reception
following her Arts & Lecture reading on September 26,
an audience member told Ellen Gilchrist that her church
book club was reading Gilchrist's stories. “I
must call my mother!” Gilchrist exclaimed. “She
thinks I'm so irreverent!
This is just what I need.”
Irreverent? Gilchrist? In a word: yes.
But hers is a splendid irreverence. An irreverence that
has guided her through the publication of some 20 books
in 20 years. An irreverence that has earned her the
National Book Award and international acclaim.
Gilchrist is best known for her creation of explosive
female characters who fight for independence from
unfaithful husbands, patriarchal customs, and the
perceived emotional bankruptcy of affluent Southern
society.
If one were to breathe life into a bookshelf of
characters, one could easily pick hers out from the bunch
– they are the loudest ones present, the most
theatrical, the flashiest, and they are undoubtedly
having the most fun. And, as anyone who knows Gilchrist
can attest, the fruit does not fall far from the tree.
Like her characters, Gilchrist is apt to force open the
doors of polite society. She is a passionate person, and
passionate people must speak their minds. Love and loss,
people and places, language and knowledge, Zen and the
River – they float through her work and her life.
Hers is not a cultivated eccentricity, but rather it is
the expression of a truly free and liberated mind.
LETTER FROM THE
PRESIDENT | PAGE 1 OF 5 |
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