SOURCE: “The Patterns People Make,” in Times Literary Supplement, No. 4937, November 14, 1997, p. 24.

In the following review, Emck lauds Gilchrist's novel Nora Jane and Company as “a sweet and enlightened novel in celebration of improbable love.”

Ellen Gilchrist has written a sweet and enlightened novel in celebration of improbable love. Nora Jane and Company traces the randomness of human destiny in a story composed of brightly signposted coincidences, peppered with reflections on DNA and the vastness of the cosmos. “Nineteen ninety-five and we are still in orbit. Keep your fingers crossed”, says the prologue.

But this is a novel that is as interested in patterns as in randomness. Its most delightful characters are four girls between the ages of seven and eleven. Two are twins, born to the same mother but from the sperm of different fathers. Two are adopted girls from different families who act like twins. The...