Customer Reviews

A Dangerous Age: A Novel

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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.

This book was incredibly scattered. The characters were not well developed and were very one dimensional. I gave up and threw the book away when the main character (I guess) wrote an editorial about how the soldiers who committed war crimes at Abu Grahib shouldn't be blamed for the atrocities. I'll never buy another Gilchrist book again.

I had the impression that Gilchrest was a highly praised writer, but this was awful! The characters were flimsy and hard to distinguish from each othe...moreI had the impression that Gilchrest was a highly praised writer, but this was awful! The characters were flimsy and hard to distinguish from each other (was she counting on readers already knowing them from other books?). The supposedly brilliant newspaperwoman can't write her way out of a paper bag -- her "amazing editorials" are sloppy trite rambles. Everyone runs around thinking things that sound like "she knew he would be her lifetime love because he was good and brave and true and had the heart of a warrior" (not an exact quote, but A Dangerous Age contains a ton of prose just like this).

The set-up should have been interesting -- an extended family of women, who find their lives changed by 9/11 and the Iraq war -- and in theory I would have liked to see what a gifted writer who DIDN'T oppose that war would have to say about it. But Gilchrest had nothing whatever of interest to say, except that we send the poor to fight our wars and then don't want to hear about it; that's all too true, but it does not an entire novel make.

Ellen Gilcrest is a good southern writer but this book is all over the place and choppy. Very hard to follow. You really cannot get into the characters. I didn't enjoy it at all.

Ellen Gilchrist's latest novel "A Dangerous Age" was made especially enjoyable to me because of her dry wit. I laughed out loud several times, and while there is certainly tragedy in this novel, it is by no means a "tragic novel".

In the character of Olivia (arguably the main character) we explore how opinions and convictions can change once you have some "skin in the game". I didn't feel that Olivia's questions about the war in Iraq were a political statement by Gilchrist, but rather a mirror of the uncertainty that many of us feel. What is right? Do I even know? CAN I even know? Those are legitimate, often unanswerable, questions.

"A Dangerous Age" was a quick, interesting and enjoyable 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.

Not having read Ellen Gilchrist before, I was expecting something more literary from A Dangerous Age. The novel opens with Louise narrating life-changing incidents in casual, wry prose. Major events tumble out, one per paragraph, told in a cavalier, almost absurdist tone. Then suddenly Louise's cousin Olivia de Havilland Hand takes over the narrative and becomes the main voice and character for the rest of the novel. More thoughtful and sincere, Olivia is a newspaper editor and much of the story is a vehicle for her views on the Iraq war.

As it turns out, all the primary characters in the story are female cousins who marry men serving in Iraq. This coincidental situation has the effect of both 1) seeming artificial and propagandistic; 2) driving home the legitimate point that for military families the Iraq war is an all-consuming experience and totally different than for most of the people in the U.S.

Olivia is pro-Bush and for the war, yet critical of some of its aspects and may ultimately be against the war. One cousin questions the war, another signs a letter "your flag-waver cousin". Although full of politics, what point the author is making politically, other than relativism, is ambiguous.

A Dangerous Age is skillfully written and deceptively casual; describing many mundane details of life in moments of crisis or profound change add a surface realism, but also a lack of drama. I found the novel quite readable but not compelling.

"The long wait was absolutely worth it. Gilchrist proves again why she is one of today's premier storytellers. We could not put A Dangerous Age down, the story of the women of the Hand family - Olivia, Winifred and Louse - are sure to be the plot of a movie very soon."