SOURCE: Hooper, Brad. Review of Flights of Angels, by Ellen Gilchrist. Booklist 94, no. 22 (August 1998): 1922.

In the following review, Hooper applauds the humorous and poignant stories comprising Flights of Angels.

Gilchrist is so amiable that it's no wonder that she is one of the most popular American short story writers today. She just has to be a friendly person, given that her fiction is so delectably yarny. It's back-porch material; when reading her stories, one can practically hear them being told to an appreciative audience as the sun drifts down to the horizon. Her latest collection [Flights of Angels], will not disappoint her numerous fans. Her dual senses of comedy and poignancy continue in close partnership; the typical laugh-and-cry reaction to a Gilchrist story is both anticipated and realized in every piece gathered here. Readers meet some of her wonderfully all-too-human characters in “A Tree to Be Desired,” a...