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Falling Through Space: The Journals of Ellen Gilchrist
Ellen Gilchrist has amassed a nationwide following, and her readers eagerly anticipate each new short story collection and novel. The sassy and moving commentaries she recorded for National Public Radio were a large part of the original kindling for this intense interest.
In Falling Through Space: The Journals of Ellen Gilchrist the spark that first attracted this audience flashes again in fifty-eight short essays drawn from those enormously successful broadcasts. To update and continue the dialogue she has always maintained with her fans, Gilchrist has added fifteen new essays.
Originally published in 1987 by Little, Brown and Company, Falling Through Space provides a funny and intimate diary of a writer's self-discovery. Author of more than a dozen books and winner of the National Book Award, Gilchrist is a beloved and distinctive southern voice whose life and memories are every bit as entertaining as the wild and poignant short stories for which she is famous.
The short essays that anchor this book vividly explore the Mississippi plantation life of her childhood; the books, teachers, and artists who influenced her development; and her thoughts about writing and life in general. Coupled with forty-two pictures from Gilchrist's youth and adulthood, these slices of life create a running autobiography.
In new essays, originally published in such magazines as Vogue, Outside, New Woman, and the Washington Post Sunday Magazine, Gilchrist reveals her origins, influences, and the way she works when she writes. Required reading for any fan, this book is Ellen Gilchrist at her funniest and best. For her readers it confirms her spontaneity and her talent for finding life at its zaniest and brightest.
In Falling Through Space: The Journals of Ellen Gilchrist the spark that first attracted this audience flashes again in fifty-eight short essays drawn from those enormously successful broadcasts. To update and continue the dialogue she has always maintained with her fans, Gilchrist has added fifteen new essays.
Originally published in 1987 by Little, Brown and Company, Falling Through Space provides a funny and intimate diary of a writer's self-discovery. Author of more than a dozen books and winner of the National Book Award, Gilchrist is a beloved and distinctive southern voice whose life and memories are every bit as entertaining as the wild and poignant short stories for which she is famous.
The short essays that anchor this book vividly explore the Mississippi plantation life of her childhood; the books, teachers, and artists who influenced her development; and her thoughts about writing and life in general. Coupled with forty-two pictures from Gilchrist's youth and adulthood, these slices of life create a running autobiography.
In new essays, originally published in such magazines as Vogue, Outside, New Woman, and the Washington Post Sunday Magazine, Gilchrist reveals her origins, influences, and the way she works when she writes. Required reading for any fan, this book is Ellen Gilchrist at her funniest and best. For her readers it confirms her spontaneity and her talent for finding life at its zaniest and brightest.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
12 people are currently reading
227 people want to read
About the author
Ellen Gilchrist
70 books261 followers A writer of poems, short stories, novels, and nonfiction commentaries, Ellen Gilchrist is a diverse writer whom critics have praised repeatedly for her subtle perceptions, unique characters, and sure command of the writer’s voice, as well as her innovative plotlines set in her native Mississippi.
As Sabine Durrant commented in the London Times, her writing “swings between the familiar and the shocking, the everyday and the traumatic.... She writes about ordinary happenings in out of the way places, of meetings between recognizable characters from her other fiction and strangers, above all of domestic routine disrupted by violence.” The world of her fiction is awry; the surprise ending, although characteristic of her works, can still shock the reader. “It is disorienting stuff,” noted Durrant, “but controlled always by Gilchrist’s wry tone and gentle insight.”
She earned her B.A. from Millsaps College in 1967, and later did postgraduate study at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
She has worked as an author and journalist, as a contributing editor for the Vieux Carre Courier from 1976-1979, and as a commentator on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition from 1984-1985. Her NPR commentaries have been published in her book Falling Through Space.
She won a National Book Award for her 1984 collection of short stories, Victory Over Japan.
As Sabine Durrant commented in the London Times, her writing “swings between the familiar and the shocking, the everyday and the traumatic.... She writes about ordinary happenings in out of the way places, of meetings between recognizable characters from her other fiction and strangers, above all of domestic routine disrupted by violence.” The world of her fiction is awry; the surprise ending, although characteristic of her works, can still shock the reader. “It is disorienting stuff,” noted Durrant, “but controlled always by Gilchrist’s wry tone and gentle insight.”
She earned her B.A. from Millsaps College in 1967, and later did postgraduate study at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
She has worked as an author and journalist, as a contributing editor for the Vieux Carre Courier from 1976-1979, and as a commentator on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition from 1984-1985. Her NPR commentaries have been published in her book Falling Through Space.
She won a National Book Award for her 1984 collection of short stories, Victory Over Japan.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 22, 2014
I pick this up and put it down between other books, and every time I read a few entries, I am energized and inspired, as I nearly always am when I read anything by Gilchrist. She loves life and she lives it, as do her characters, with great gusto and verve. I covet this woman's spark, creative and otherwise. My favorite living Southerner.
May 4, 2011
Fun reading after having become familiar with so many of her short stories. She is a great woman writer of our time, although my mother's age she is unusually honest about her life.
December 10, 2018
This book is one to reread, savor and dip into. It touches my soul.
February 21, 2019
Nice little writer's journal. Nothing much more, but doesn't need to be.
August 5, 2023
Read many years ago, multiple readings. Curious now to go back and see if it still speaks to me as powerfully as it did them.
December 26, 2016
I first learned of Ellen Gilchrist many years ago when I'd hear her read her journal entries on NPR. So I quite naturally gravitated to these journals, and I could almost hear her voice again as I turned the pages. Now a very proud grandmother, she shares her thoughts on writing, southern writing, and the cycle of things, both natural and man-made. I think anyone who remembers her from the radio will enjoy jumping back into her journals.
February 25, 2025
I’m looking forward to Victory Over Japan after this, because I really do enjoy her writing, and her appreciation for writing whole is astounding. I was a little thrown by the passage about her deep love for men (platonic, familial, and romantic), but I think that is most likely just a generational difference and within the context of a second-wave feminism. It just felt a little odd out of context I suppose.
January 15, 2008
One of those great memoirs showing how a writer created a life in writing and told beautifully, memorably. Gilchrist is always a pleasure. She likes her black sheep...they are in her real life as much as they are in her stories.
April 22, 2009
My library had a display of the letters and journals of authors, and I snagged this. A really quick read, great pictures, but not as revealing as one might assume - perhaps because in the twenty-plus years since publication, the novels and stries have disclosed everything in here, and more.
January 4, 2016
I learned of Ellen Gilchrist from her commentaries on NPR, which led me to this book, and this book is what got me hooked on reading more of her work. Beautiful writing, widespread interests, interesting insights.
August 7, 2008
i love ellen gilchrist. her characters have real feelings. she writes in short clear sentences which are very refreshing
compared to many writers.
September 9, 2008
Loved it!!
January 17, 2009
Jo bought me this book years ago for $.20. I love it and read it over and over. Gilchrist is such a down to earth and insightful writer.
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March 1, 2010Read by ACRL Member of the Week Susan Campbell. Learn more about Susan on the ACRL Insider blog.
July 22, 2010
I really like this book so far...it is very nostalgic and reminds me of all of the years I have written in journals. Plus she's from the south and there is a pleasant laid back vibe to it.
February 28, 2011
When I was going on my post-university Southern writer rampage, Gilchrist was one of my top authors. And this was one of my favorites of hers.
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February 21, 2012Falling Through Space: The Journals of Ellen Gilchrist (Banner Books) by Ellen Gilchrist (2000)
February 7, 2014
I love Ellen's books. I found this wonderful!
October 2, 2014
What a pleasure to read. Thanks for lending it, Lisa! I will buy my own copy and add it to my favorites shelf. (Its a real shelf).
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews