THIS is what writing should be

A month or two ago, I read Ellen Gilchrist's In the Land of Dreamy Dreams...and loved it. Now that I have finished another collection of her short stories (Victory Over Japan), I will repeat myself: I have not read such an adept and amazing short story writer since reading Alice Munro.

A lot of what I come across in my reading travels seems cliche and worn out (in a bad way), in an amateur way (the difference between writers and people who like to write). This is opposed to reading a passage that describes something known that we can all picture, but in an interesting and so simply it was right in front of our faces why didn't we think of it kind of way. For example, here is Gilchrist describing an earthquake:

"At first she thought a cat had walked across the bed. Then she thought the world had come to an end. Then the lights went on."

So simple. It doesn't do more than it needs to. It isn't presumptuous or patronizing. It is real.

My absolute favorite part of Victory Over Japan was a revisit to a story from In the Land of Dreamy Dreams. I saw it and was all, yes(!) Nora Jane! In Dreamy Dreams, Nora Jane fell in love with a boy. This boy turned NJ into his accomplice and they robbed banks. The boy left NJ, but promised to bring her to California when he could. NJ took her life into her own hands, dressed up as a nun and robbed a bar. But now we get to see what happens after a woman follows a boy...

As it is a continuation, there was the added treat of an introduction from Gilchrist:

"When the story ended Nora Jane had successfully completed the robbery and was on her way to California. I wish I could say that Sandy was waiting at the airport when she got there, sleepless and excited and true. I wish that dreams came true, that courage and tenderness were rewarded in the world as they should be. I wish I could tell you that Nora Jane and Sandy lived happily ever after in Sunny California. Alas, that is not the way it happened."

I wish...

"Nora Jane was only practical about love most of the time. Part of the time she was just as dumb about it as everybody else in the world."
Ellen Gilchrist