A new Ellen Gilchrist collection is always an event for the legions of her loyal readers. In I, Rhoda Manning, Go Hunting with My Daddy, Gilchrist writes again of one of her most beloved characters, with the hilarity, wisdom, and poignancy that marks all of her fiction. Here, a clutch of stories are told in the voice of Rhoda--as a child, as a divorced mother of three sons, and as an old woman, recalling the curse and blessing of being the only daughter of Big Dudley. In "The Abortion," a young girl whose father is dying and the boy who loves her struggle with clashing notions of what makes life meaningful. In "Remorse," a small town hairdresser revisits the last days of his best friend's life and what he might have done to save her. There is a rich vein of sorrow here, but Gilchrist lightens the burden with a grasp of how both folly and grace are born of love. As her characters, both new and familiar, spin out their unlikely fates, Gilchrist proves once again that there is no other Southern writer quite like her.
