SOURCE: Seaman, Donna. Review of Collected Stories, by Ellen Gilchrist. Booklist 97, no. 2 (15 September 2000): 188.

In the following review, Seaman provides a laudatory assessment of Collected Stories.

Gilchrist's celebrated writing life began with a book of short stories, In the Land of the Dreamy Dreams (1984), and her second collection, Victory Over Japan won the 1985 National Book Award. She has switched back and forth between novels and short stories ever since, and her dulcet yet tensile voice has become an integral part of American literature. Gilchrist has now selected 34 of her favorite stories from seven collections [Collected Stories] to create a potent and pleasingly cohesive volume that showcases her deep sense of place and, the most salient feature of her work, her lusty, unpredictable, and unapologetic heroines. Gilchrist's women have refused to be contained within single stories. No matter how often she finds someone new to write about, and how far...