A True Woman of Letters

A review of Conversations with Ellen Gilchrist, a book filled with interviews from Ellen Gilchrist, a short story writer known for her strong Southern female characters.

Conversations with Ellen Gilchrist gives insight into the thought processes and imagination of Ellen Gilchrist, “an American poet, short story writer, novelist, and essayist.” Gilchrist’s different works, including short story collections like Victory over Japan, In the Land of Dreamy Dreams and The Courts of Love, are praised for their creativity and interesting characters. Specifically, Gilchrist is known for her strong female leads, like in The Annunciation, her first novel, which follows Amanda, a Southern women who has to deal with the loss of a child.

This book is mostly made up of conversations and interviews that are either focused on Gilchrist or involve her in a bigger discussion. In every single conversation, Gilchrist allows her creativity to shine through. In one of her earliest interviews, Postscripts No. 7, she describes herself as a “very energetic person,” one who reads a lot of books in her spare time. In her own words, in response to being asked if she was something of a non-conformist, she says:

“Oh yeah, I was the ringleader of the rebellion. But within the bounds, in the fifties you just didn’t – I did things like – my idea of, you know, really being rebellious was to lead a bunch of people and we’d play hooky and go swimming. I had to be the first person swimming every spring. Or we would borrow a pickup truck, tell everybody that we were forming a literary society, and then we would go to the library and three of us would keep the librarian busy while the fourth got the books that she wasn’t supposed to let us take out and off we would go to a cave. But we would never read the books, we would just climb the cave.” – Ellen Gilchrist, transcribed by Tracy Carr

In another interview, this time much later in 2013 with Luke Lampton and Scott Anderson, Gilchrist gives insight into her mind, clinging to poetry at all times, even during her cousin’s funeral. We can see through her words during the 18 interviews in the book how she’s able to create such in-depth stories and characters. Gilchrist is wholly devoted to her craft, humorous, thoughtful and eloquent in the way she writes, and even more insightful in the way she speaks about her work.

I also want to honor the editor and the person who transcribed many of the interviews in the book: Tracy Carr. Carr does a wonderful job of portraying such a prolific and accomplished writer, and it’s incredible that she was able to compile so many different interviews and conversations throughout Gilchrist’s life. The most impressive part of these conversations is how well and accurately Gilchrist’s energy is captured. The care that went into the transcribing should be acknowledged.

This book is a must-read for anyone who is a fan of Gilchrist’s work and wants to see how her mindset and characters evolved alongside her throughout her lifetime.

Conversations With Ellen Gilchrist is one of our Spring Reading Picks.