A Dangerous Age: A Novel [Hardcover]

I have been a big fan of Ellen Gilchrist for 25 years, I've read and enjoyed all her books but I found this one a big disappointment. To me, it seemed like a political polemic thinly disguised as a novel. We want to read about how the political climate affects the lives of the characters or how they feel about what's happening, not read page after page of their political views. Not much character development or plot, lots of proselytizing.

I discovered Ellen Gilchrist in 1984 on NPR, was fascinated with her accent and loved her commemtaries. I remember reading LAND OF DREAMY DREAMS, THE ANNUNCIATION and VICTORY OVER JAPAN and being taken by her writing, particularly her short stories. Then she dropped off the radio and I stopping reading her, a little like someone waking up one day and remembering that he used to eat at a favorite restaurant but no longer does, for no particular reason. Now Ms. Gilchrist has written a novel, her first in several years. I bought it after being drawn in by its first few pages that I have reread three times now and find them just as wonderful as upon first reading. The short novel begins with the plans for a society wedding of Winifred Hand Abadie and Charles Christian Kane to have taken place on December 21, 2001 in Raleigh, North Carolina. The
wedding party would be composed of friends and family in their thirties and from the upper middle class. Then Ms. Gilchrist writes in clear prose that appears effortless: "Except the wedding never took place because Charles Kane perished on September 11, 2001, along with three thousand other perfectly lovely, helpless human beings. He had been in the first tower of the World Trade Center, on the fifteenth floor, with two other young brokers, trying to set up a deal to build a new tennis club in Raleigh."

Like the restaurant we revisit-- to continue my trite metaphor-- Ms. Gilchrist isn't as good in this novel as I remembered, and I cannot explain exactly why. She writes about three women in the Hand family, Winifred, Louise and Olivia. The narrative jumps back and forth. I thought at first the story would be Louise's since it begins with her as first person narrator. Then the third person narrator takes over-- at least for a few pages-- with most of the book being about Olivia, who writes for a newspaper in Tulsa. Women in their thirties marry men in their twenties-- which should come as no surprise to Gilchrist fans-- usually after they have managed to get themselves with child without much effort on anyone's part. The men are gung-ho about the military. The day after Charles' funeral on 10 January 2002 ("it is extremely hard to have a funeral when you don't have anything to bury"), his identical twin cousins joined the Marines. Although Olivia's husband Bobby, is called up to active duty when his reserve unit is activated rather than volunteering, he still essentially believes in his leaders and is proud to be an American. The women can be just as patriotic if from a distance. Winifred signs a letter to Olivia as "Your flag-waver cousin, Winifred" but makes love to Brian on three-hundred-dollar "450-count percale sheets rinsed in lavender" on a nine-hundred-dollar mattress. Apparently she took seriously the President's exhortation to support our troops by going shopping. Olivia, on the other hand, acknowledges that "the South and Midwest always fought the wars, farm boys and high school athletes, poor boys and sons [unlike the volunteering twins of course] 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." One of the best parts about this uneven novel is Olivia's newspaper columns.

Ms. Gilchrist strews quotations from Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Albert Einstein et al. throughout this story and admonishes the reader, through the voice of Olivia, to have our children memorize poetry, an idea I couldn't agree with more. In the end though this novel is not greater than the sum of its parts. On the other hand, for whatever else may not work perfectly in this novel, Ms. Gilchrist's transparent prose does. It is as beautiful as that of any other contemporary American author's and a joy to read.

"A Dangerous Age" was my first Ellen Gilchrist book.

While I'm all for realism and non-Hollywood endings, this story about how the Iraq war impacts the lives of three women left an unpleasant aftertaste. Maybe that's what the author wanted.

Living in the Washington, D.C. area, Winifred Hand has been adrift since her fiance was killed on 9/11. Her cousin Louise meets, beds and marries a young marine, himself a cousin of Winifred's dead fiance.

Just when you think this book is going to center around Winifred and Louise, Gilchrist takes her readers to Tulsa where she introduces us to their black sheep cousin, Olivia, a tough-as-nails newspaper editor who is forced to change her view of the war. She revisits a first love, only to find loss of another kind.

There was something just a bubble off plum about this book. While the writing style is solid, the plot feels incomplete.

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