SOURCE: “Taking Wing,” in Los Angeles Times Book Review, November 8, 1998, p. 10.

In the following review, Rubin asserts that Gilchrist's fiction has been somewhat inconsistent, but that her short stories seem to be stronger, including those in her collection Flights of Angels.

Novelist, poet and short-story writer Ellen Gilchrist made an impressive literary debut in 1981 with her book of short stories, In the Land of Dreamy Dreams. Her 1984 collection, Victory over Japan, won that year’s National Book Award for fiction. Since then, more than a dozen books—story collections, novels, autobiographical nonfiction—have appeared: a mixed bag, in which can be found much that is poignant, funny, charming, wry, moving, even wise, but also much that is coy, preachy, self-satisfied, well-nigh insufferable.

By and large, it seems fair to say that Gilchrist’s short fiction has been stronger than her novels. And, indeed, her new collection, Flights of...