Flights of Angels: Stories

The opening story in Flights of Angels sets the theme for this new collection: the intricate and inexorable relationships between power, love, and loss. A Mississippi patriarch lies dying as his large family gathers around him. Once rich and powerful, he is now reduced to dependency on the very sons who ruined his financial empire and on government programs he has always despised. His granddaughter, the story's narrator, her marriage falling apart, starts an affair with the attending black hospice worker, ironically fulfilling the old man's prejudices. In the ensuing stories, parents and children, siblings, and lovers tread the treacherous paths of love. The reader is treated to tales from familiar Gilchrist characters - Rhoda, and Traceleen and Crystal - and is introduced to a gallery of sparklingly eccentric new ones. Caught in the snares the heart spins, they all learn the cost and pain of love, while reveling in its joy and hilarity.