Acclaimed Southern voice takes on Sept. 11
But Gilchrist's tale of sisters and cousins seems to lose its way at times
KATHLEEN McCLAIN
Special to the Observer
Carla Tyson/Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Author Ellen Gilchrist.
ELLEN GILCHRIST
• She's the author of more than 20 books, including novels, short stories, poetry and a memoir.
• She won the National Books Award for her short-story collection "Victory Over Japan."
• She lives in Arkansas.
A DANGEROUS AGE
By Ellen Gilchrist. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 245 pages. $23.95.
The “Dangerous Age” in Ellen Gilchrist's new novel is the one we live in: seven years past 9-11, five years into a divisive war that has claimed more than 4,000 American lives and rolls on with no end in sight.
The book follows the Hand women, sketched as a close-knit Southern clan of sisters and cousins scattered from Washington to New Orleans to Tulsa, Okla. Their story begins – as thousands of heartbreaking family narratives have – in that sickening September moment, with the death of a Raleigh bridegroom-to-be on a business trip to New York.
In the smoking towers, Winifred Hand Abadie, the bride-who-won't-be, loses everything she had planned her life around. Her bridesmaids, all past 30, none in a serious relationship, gather for a memorial service rather than a wedding.
The large, often unwieldy cast is headed by Winifred's cousin, Olivia de Havilland Hand (great name), editor of the morning newspaper in Tulsa and dominant voice in the book. Olivia's sister Tallulah, in a bit part, is tennis coach at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. Cousin Louise Hand Healy, a D.C.-based documentary filmmaker, narrates the opening chapters.
The Hands are accomplished, well-spoken women; unpretentious and financially comfortable. The book tracks their changes of heart and mind in the war years after 9-11. The day after the blast that took Winifred's fiancé, his identical-twin cousins – bent on revenge – enlist in the Army. Olivia is reunited with her ex-husband, who is called up from the reserves after she becomes pregnant with their child.
For a writer as lyrical and clear-eyed as she can be, Gilchrist seems to lose her way. The improbable pairings of Winifred, Louise and the twins – one badly wounded, recuperating at Walter Reed – seem too pat. When the narrative moves to Tulsa, much is made of the passionate, half-Cherokee Olivia, the paper's youngest-ever editor. It is in her letters and fiery columns that Gilchrist places the war's bottom line:
“A ‘wasteful vengeance',” Olivia writes, quoting Shakespeare, “is that what we're doing here? I do not think so. I believe we were attacked and are now mounting a long and costly counter-attack that will not end for many years, maybe for my lifetime.”
But senseless death and the disproportionate sacrifice of men like her husband challenge deeply held beliefs.
“The South and Midwest always fought the wars,” Olivia says, not without bitterness, “farm boys and high school athletes, poor boys and sons whose folks worked for a living, the sons and daughters of the beautiful small towns of America. That's who went to war and that's who shed the blood.”
Olivia's proud Cherokee heritage and the grandparents who keep it alive soften her story and open her up to healing. But the mix of relatives is complicated; clues dropped early (including cryptic references to a suicidal novelist-aunt from Charlotte) aren't picked up. And when the message stalls, Gilchrist supplies a poem or writes an editorial to fit the need.
It seems too easy an out for an acclaimed writer who long ago mastered the art of bringing Southern women and their families vividly to life.
Kathleen McClain is a writer in Charlotte.
