SOURCE: “Dressed for Success in the South,” in Times Literary Supplement, No. 4829, p. 23.

In the following review, Tandon argues that there are profound moments in Gilchrist's The Age of Miracles, but that it is not her best work.

Ellen Gilchrist, as readers of her stories will have noticed, has a gift for moving meticulously around the textures and ramifications of an event; and while her novels are always entertaining, this is a gift which lends itself more naturally to the short story, a form where epiphany is distilled and compressed. The Age of Miracles is a welcome return to Gilchrist’s Southern landscapes and charmingly fallible characters.

Fables depend on a sense of ritual and expectation, and although only “Madison at 69th” openly calls itself “A Fable”, Gilchrist’s talent for noticing the shapes of habit in everyday life runs deep. In “Statue of Aphrodite”, the disappointment of...