SOURCE: Mesic, Penelope. Review of Collected Stories, by Ellen Gilchrist. Book (January 2001): 69.

In the following review, Mesic provides a favorable assessment of Collected Stories.

In one of Gilchrist's sublimely mellow short stories [in Collected Stories], a resourceful housemaid describes meeting the teen-aged son of her employer, a wealthy woman just married for the second time: “‘I'm Traceleen,’ I said. ‘I'm going to be the maid.’ ‘I'm King,’ he said. ‘I'm going to be the stepchild.’” This brief exchange, wryly funny and straightforward, is absolutely typical of Gilchrist's characters, who, whatever their shortcomings, always have a keen sense of who they are. One story even centers on a resourceful young woman named Nora Jean who, desperate to join her no-good boyfriend, robs a bar in New Orleans and escapes dressed as a nun. Wealthy or dirt poor, these characters share an invigorating sense of finding something to savor in...