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Gilda Trillim: Shepherdess of Rats
Steven L. Peck's intriguing, literary narrative follows Gilda Trillim's many adventures; from her origins on a potato farm in Idaho, to an Orthodox Convent in the Soviet Union, to her life as a badminton champion... When Gilda is taken prisoner during the Vietnam war, she finds comfort in the company of the rats who cohabit her cell. Follow Gilda as she struggles to comprehend the meaning of life in this uncanny, philosophical novel which explores Mormonism, spirituality and what it means to be human.
- GenresFiction
298 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 29, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
September 26, 2018
This is a strange and delightful book about a woman named Gilda Trillim who wrestles with questions about how objects relate to one another and what her incredible religious visions mean. It is not funny like The Scholar of Moab; it is earnest and thoughtful and weird.
Why make this a work of fiction, when so many of the issues that Trillim deals with are the same as the ones that come up in Peck's essays? At first I didn't understand what the point was of having such an elaborate frame story, especially when so much of the "thesis" was "presented with no further comment." I couldn't tell if this was hasty writing or poking fun at scholarly commentary that draws attention to itself through its own "no comment." I also wonder if it's easier to deal with "weird" religious ideas through a fictional character. And why would Peck have his characters cite his own poem that hadn't been written yet? Peck doesn't care as much about the internal consistency of the citations as he does the story he wants to tell, which is probably for the better.
I feel like these are very minor quibbles compared to the spiritual insight I gained when contemplating the ideas this book brings up. The ending and the above-mentioned poem about the ant really puts into perspective how to God, or a god, humans must seem like a lower life form hardly worth caring for. There is probably a lot more going on that we aren't in a position to understand. But the love that God shows us and we Them; their relationship--is what makes our lives feel significant.
This book is especially significant to me because I have been wondering about spiritual questions that are similar to the ones Trillim addresses, like how scripture stories are actually more powerful to me as stories than as some kind of historical document, or how on some level, the details of apologetics completely intrigue/enrage/disappoint/confuse/bore me and I'm much more interested in hearing about and having authentic religious experiences. In the end of the book, the scholars' disagreement about if Trillim was crazy or not reminded me of arguments over the veracity of Joseph Smith's visions. People try to make it into an either/or question, when the truth is probably more complex.
I love how when Gilda is meditating on love and encounters other people that she has the hardest time loving them. I love the vision Gilda has of her existential questions represented by a paper wolf that she decides to run towards. I love Gilda's vision of Heavenly Mother. I love the metaphors about independence being like a chicken glad it is rid of its feathers and how knowing God by trying to understand His parts being like trying to understand a person by knowing how their liver works. I hope that I can continue to meditate on my favorite parts of this book and become more comfortable with my own religiousity.
Why make this a work of fiction, when so many of the issues that Trillim deals with are the same as the ones that come up in Peck's essays? At first I didn't understand what the point was of having such an elaborate frame story, especially when so much of the "thesis" was "presented with no further comment." I couldn't tell if this was hasty writing or poking fun at scholarly commentary that draws attention to itself through its own "no comment." I also wonder if it's easier to deal with "weird" religious ideas through a fictional character. And why would Peck have his characters cite his own poem that hadn't been written yet? Peck doesn't care as much about the internal consistency of the citations as he does the story he wants to tell, which is probably for the better.
I feel like these are very minor quibbles compared to the spiritual insight I gained when contemplating the ideas this book brings up. The ending and the above-mentioned poem about the ant really puts into perspective how to God, or a god, humans must seem like a lower life form hardly worth caring for. There is probably a lot more going on that we aren't in a position to understand. But the love that God shows us and we Them; their relationship--is what makes our lives feel significant.
This book is especially significant to me because I have been wondering about spiritual questions that are similar to the ones Trillim addresses, like how scripture stories are actually more powerful to me as stories than as some kind of historical document, or how on some level, the details of apologetics completely intrigue/enrage/disappoint/confuse/bore me and I'm much more interested in hearing about and having authentic religious experiences. In the end of the book, the scholars' disagreement about if Trillim was crazy or not reminded me of arguments over the veracity of Joseph Smith's visions. People try to make it into an either/or question, when the truth is probably more complex.
I love how when Gilda is meditating on love and encounters other people that she has the hardest time loving them. I love the vision Gilda has of her existential questions represented by a paper wolf that she decides to run towards. I love Gilda's vision of Heavenly Mother. I love the metaphors about independence being like a chicken glad it is rid of its feathers and how knowing God by trying to understand His parts being like trying to understand a person by knowing how their liver works. I hope that I can continue to meditate on my favorite parts of this book and become more comfortable with my own religiousity.
January 17, 2020
This book is not a novel. It is a philosophical treatise. Or maybe it's a gospel. But since it's a philosophy (or gospel) about embodied beauty and embodied love, it can only be told in embodied stories of a strange Utah-desert woman and her singing rats.
This book spoke to me. Eerily, uncannily, it spoke to me. It explores many of the things I think about daily, like: how can we rejoice over each object? And what IS an object? And what are humans? How are we to think of god(s)? Also: what about rats?
As I grew to love this book, I also grew distraught about sharing it with others. Who to recommend it to? Non-Mormons would be annoyed by the Mormonism. Mormons would be shocked by the heresy. And everyone would be disgusted by the rats and their vomit. That means it's a very brave book, an unapologetic book, that follows out its own heart and brain without bending. And that makes the surprise and joy all the greater if you are one of the very few varmint-loving para-pseudo-(ex)-Mormons who can instantly connect with Trillim's world.
Peck treats evolution as a deep universal truth. And this book evolves Mormonism into an entirely different creature. Almost thou persuadest me to believe in this wild new worship, Peck.
This book spoke to me. Eerily, uncannily, it spoke to me. It explores many of the things I think about daily, like: how can we rejoice over each object? And what IS an object? And what are humans? How are we to think of god(s)? Also: what about rats?
As I grew to love this book, I also grew distraught about sharing it with others. Who to recommend it to? Non-Mormons would be annoyed by the Mormonism. Mormons would be shocked by the heresy. And everyone would be disgusted by the rats and their vomit. That means it's a very brave book, an unapologetic book, that follows out its own heart and brain without bending. And that makes the surprise and joy all the greater if you are one of the very few varmint-loving para-pseudo-(ex)-Mormons who can instantly connect with Trillim's world.
Peck treats evolution as a deep universal truth. And this book evolves Mormonism into an entirely different creature. Almost thou persuadest me to believe in this wild new worship, Peck.
November 15, 2017
In Gilda Trillim Shepherdess of Rats, I was reminded of the interplay (and disparity) between necessity and contingency, that in all of life, “things come into existence contingently, not necessarily.” I was reminded of the subtleties inherent in the treatment of free will and determinism, as “we will do what we do/It just is.” Reading Gilda was also a cogent reminder of how a love of literature can act as “healing balm” and even a “life preserver” in the storms we often find ourselves in. Both the universe and eternities are open and undetermined, each holding wonder ahead, “unfolding into more wondrous and diverse things.” It was a reminder that there is immense beauty in randomness and complexity; that certainty is an illusion (take that atheist and theist!).
In Gilda Trillim’s epic adventures, I was distinctly reminded of the Divine Feminine — her power to save and to heal what is broken in our lives--the sacred experience with the Divine unmediated by another. This we must remember--that ritual in our lives helps us to remember. Ritual grounds experience.
After reading Gilda, I was reminded that life in all of its forms of evolving creation requires possibility and contingency, chance and selection, entropy and decay, and eventual death of various components. Ultimately, for me, Peck’s Shepherdess of Rats is a story about grace and love. And what a story it is.
In Gilda Trillim’s epic adventures, I was distinctly reminded of the Divine Feminine — her power to save and to heal what is broken in our lives--the sacred experience with the Divine unmediated by another. This we must remember--that ritual in our lives helps us to remember. Ritual grounds experience.
After reading Gilda, I was reminded that life in all of its forms of evolving creation requires possibility and contingency, chance and selection, entropy and decay, and eventual death of various components. Ultimately, for me, Peck’s Shepherdess of Rats is a story about grace and love. And what a story it is.
October 3, 2017
As he does in his first novel, The Scholar of Moab, Steve Peck manages to make the unbelievable not only plausible but deeply moving, so much so that one awakes from his fiction with a feeling of deep yearning to return to the reality he has created. But this isn't because his fiction fulfills any kind of fantasy or provides an escape from reality. This novel is so full of wonder at the strangeness of reality itself that despite entering us into an alternative history and reality, we feel as if we have always known Gilda and her wild and fabricated ride through the twentieth century. Gilda's generous humanity and her thirst to peel away the layers of illusion that disguise reality from us leave us with thoughts of breathless beauty and give us new eyes to see what had previously escaped us about our own time and place. This is indispensable fiction, the kind of lies without which the truth eludes us.
August 15, 2018
This was such a quirky book with so many things to think about! Masterfully structured with parallels and metaphors and layers of meaning with many themes: determinism, intelligence, relationships, academia, faith, redemption, and love.
Honestly, though, I'm not sure I know many people who would enjoy this book. It would be hard to understand a lot of the context without knowing a lot about Mormons, but the content may be too gritty, liminal, and ambiguous for many Mormons to appreciate. Still, for those that do, it's a wonderfully messy reflection of the real life struggle to understand life itself.
Honestly, though, I'm not sure I know many people who would enjoy this book. It would be hard to understand a lot of the context without knowing a lot about Mormons, but the content may be too gritty, liminal, and ambiguous for many Mormons to appreciate. Still, for those that do, it's a wonderfully messy reflection of the real life struggle to understand life itself.
August 11, 2017
A book about a woman taken prisoner of war in Vietnam. A meaning of love fe book
Very well written and thought stimulating
Very well written and thought stimulating
December 14, 2017
4.5 stars. A fascinating, heart-breaking, beautiful book. My favorite parts were: 1. The "My Turn on Earth" poem, with its Mormon theology/evolutionary biologist retelling of the Pearl of Great Price creation stories. I especially appreciated the robot-building machinist satan, and the wide variety of poetic structures. 2. The Vietnam POW story, with the rats. Of course. 3. The vignette in New York with the lapsed Mormon avant guard minimalist composer, based on La Monte Young.
The novel structure, a collection of fragmentary documents, with some commentary by the dissertation writer, will be a difficult hurdle for some readers. We are allowed access to Gilda's soul only on occasion, often having to try to understand her through her literary works, or through the eyes of others. I liked it, it is realistic to how we can know anyone from the past. But it is sometimes disappointing to be so close to such an appealing character for a while, and then have to see her darkly, from the outside, for stretches at a time.
A landmark in Mormon literature.
The novel structure, a collection of fragmentary documents, with some commentary by the dissertation writer, will be a difficult hurdle for some readers. We are allowed access to Gilda's soul only on occasion, often having to try to understand her through her literary works, or through the eyes of others. I liked it, it is realistic to how we can know anyone from the past. But it is sometimes disappointing to be so close to such an appealing character for a while, and then have to see her darkly, from the outside, for stretches at a time.
A landmark in Mormon literature.
May 16, 2018
My friend Leslie described this book as "bizarre and original." I will add "thought-provoking and unsettling." There's a lot to unpack in this book, but what struck me were the the themes of randomness, love, and sacrifice and the exploration of their roles in a universe created by an omnipotent (?) and omniscient (?) God.
October 14, 2017
Peck draws on his interests in science, ecology, philosophy, and theology to write a work of fiction that is really a philosophical treatise. The narrator of _Gilda Trillim_ is a graduate student who is documenting various aspects of poet-author-athlete Gilda Trillim's life in an attempt to answer questions about the meaning of her life. But this act of assigning meaning to a person's life is one of the key question's Peck addresses. And there is no definitive answer.
Where _Scholar of Moab_ asks questions about epistemology (how we know what we know) with asides to questions about ontology (what is the nature of being), Peck's philosophical novel _Gilda Trillim_ does the reverse.
A person's Being, an object's Being exists within a complex intersection of being with other people, places, and things. And the instruments with which we observe another person obscures their Being as well.
Yes, there are passages that contains a lot of expository prose. However, it's also filled with several characters, exotic locations, and jaw-drobbing adventures. We learn about Gilda's skill at badminton, her travels to Russia, her captivity in Vietnam (well, someplace in the jungles of southeast Asia), her reclusiveness in the wilderness of eastern Utah, and her brief yet intense experience as an artist contributing to a performance in New York. Many of the situations are absurd, but the questions they pose are quite sobering.
If you want to read more of my views on this novel, here is a link to a review I wrote for Segullah:
http://segullah.org/blog/book-review-...
Where _Scholar of Moab_ asks questions about epistemology (how we know what we know) with asides to questions about ontology (what is the nature of being), Peck's philosophical novel _Gilda Trillim_ does the reverse.
A person's Being, an object's Being exists within a complex intersection of being with other people, places, and things. And the instruments with which we observe another person obscures their Being as well.
Yes, there are passages that contains a lot of expository prose. However, it's also filled with several characters, exotic locations, and jaw-drobbing adventures. We learn about Gilda's skill at badminton, her travels to Russia, her captivity in Vietnam (well, someplace in the jungles of southeast Asia), her reclusiveness in the wilderness of eastern Utah, and her brief yet intense experience as an artist contributing to a performance in New York. Many of the situations are absurd, but the questions they pose are quite sobering.
If you want to read more of my views on this novel, here is a link to a review I wrote for Segullah:
http://segullah.org/blog/book-review-...
April 23, 2018
Gilda has officially joined the rare ranks of one my all-time favorite fictional women. The way her character unfolds is lovely, disorienting, really funny, a little gross and heart-breaking. Peck is a writer grounded in the world of Mormonism and wide open to all the possibilities imagination allows. His prose is solid throughout and quite often stunning. The structure as thesis (the notes in each chapter! hilarious), the weaving together of philosophies (scientific, religious and secular), the sheer oddity--is a wonder. Peck invites the reader into a world that is at once familiar and outrageous. I thoroughly enjoyed following the unexpected twist, turns, edges and dead ends of excavating Gilda. He managed the piecing together, the building of her fraught identity, masterfully. The absences, the silences, the missing pieces of narrative, allow the reader to reach her own conclusions. Although I do not know how any reader could resist loving her, savior or madwoman. I highly recommend Gilda to anyone who is looking for a funny, thought-provoking, odd-in-the-best-way, sometimes stomach-turning, always vividly wrought, philosophical romp/classic tragedy/weird hero's journey? I'm not even sure how to classify it.
July 23, 2024
This is a bold book. It is presented in what must be the least tempting alternative to the “epistolary novel,” the fake dissertation. Bold choice.
And it’s kinda a big ask for a reader. An ask which it takes its sweet time delivering on. It definitely has its moments throughout, but in what is, again, an extremely bold choice, Peck waits till the end to really start paying out on all the promises made. And even as he starts, there are some big asks of the reader, but in the end, I found it really thought provoking, illuminating, and pretty astonishing.
So, was a bit of work at times—but still some pretty interesting stuff throughout—though the real highs are few—but worth the journey.
And pardon the vagueness, but wanted to avoid spoilers.
And it’s kinda a big ask for a reader. An ask which it takes its sweet time delivering on. It definitely has its moments throughout, but in what is, again, an extremely bold choice, Peck waits till the end to really start paying out on all the promises made. And even as he starts, there are some big asks of the reader, but in the end, I found it really thought provoking, illuminating, and pretty astonishing.
So, was a bit of work at times—but still some pretty interesting stuff throughout—though the real highs are few—but worth the journey.
And pardon the vagueness, but wanted to avoid spoilers.
December 9, 2019
I loved the rats and the theology, but the structure felt stilted, like it constrained what could have been a more touching and wily story. Without ever hearing Gilda’s original voice or truth she can sometimes come off as a sort of manic pixie dream girl, rather than a genuine protagonist. But still, there is no one who can write such daring and loving prose about the weird and wonderful people on the fringes of Mormon culture.
December 27, 2017
Brilliant literary fiction. The kind that rewrites worlds through the work and rewards of reading something absolutely new that remains intimately bound up with the past, both in fact and in fiction.
August 16, 2025
How do I rate a book like 'Gilda Trillim: Shepherdess of Rats'? Perhaps, I should preface... I've read another one of Steven Peck's books ('A Short Stay in Hell'). I was so smitten with it - I purchased two others (This one and 'The Scholar of Moab'). Unfortunately, I've picked up and put down 'The Scholar of Moab' twice. So, I decided perhaps I will attempt to consume this one instead. I did. I finished it.
So, perhaps with bias, I liked this book. As much as the other? No. But, I did enjoy this book when I finally got "into" it.
Steven Peck has a particular way with writing that is very polite, smirk worthy, but also a tad dry. The writing style itself is quite readable but on occassion it is sometimes just appears as words on the page rather than a riveting rollercoaster experience.
As I got almost halfway through the book, I finally connected with Gilda. By the time she was a POW, I was interested and invested simultaneously.
Steven's book toys with the relationships of all things and ultimately by the end - ends. It touches on several different philosophical ideas and ends with a sense of bittersweet peacefulness.
I can appreciate this book but I'll unlikely read it again. So long to the shepherdess of rats... and yes, love is the most important thing to share.
So, perhaps with bias, I liked this book. As much as the other? No. But, I did enjoy this book when I finally got "into" it.
Steven Peck has a particular way with writing that is very polite, smirk worthy, but also a tad dry. The writing style itself is quite readable but on occassion it is sometimes just appears as words on the page rather than a riveting rollercoaster experience.
As I got almost halfway through the book, I finally connected with Gilda. By the time she was a POW, I was interested and invested simultaneously.
Steven's book toys with the relationships of all things and ultimately by the end - ends. It touches on several different philosophical ideas and ends with a sense of bittersweet peacefulness.
I can appreciate this book but I'll unlikely read it again. So long to the shepherdess of rats... and yes, love is the most important thing to share.
December 6, 2018
I wear a lot of hats as a middle aged woman: wife, mother, teacher, congregant, school volunteer—ad infinitum. Because of competing demands, I struggle to maintain my identities of voracious reader and life-long learner.
Every once in a while, I grossly neglect all my other roles to read an entire book in one day.
Just as my family was gearing up for the rigors of back-to-school, I received one of the first shipped copies of Gilda Trillim: Shepherdess of Rats by Steven L. Peck (Roundfire Books, publication date listed as September 29, 2017 but inexplicably available in mid August).
Having read some of Peck’s other fiction, I expected to jump into the book and devour an absurdist, fantastical, philosophical, theological narrative over a weekend. Impossible. This book’s relationships are exponentially complex, its genre innovative...
Every once in a while, I grossly neglect all my other roles to read an entire book in one day.
Just as my family was gearing up for the rigors of back-to-school, I received one of the first shipped copies of Gilda Trillim: Shepherdess of Rats by Steven L. Peck (Roundfire Books, publication date listed as September 29, 2017 but inexplicably available in mid August).
Having read some of Peck’s other fiction, I expected to jump into the book and devour an absurdist, fantastical, philosophical, theological narrative over a weekend. Impossible. This book’s relationships are exponentially complex, its genre innovative...
April 24, 2018
It is weird to know the life of someone so intimately... especially given that they never existed.
October 9, 2020
What a beautiful and strange book! This the second book by Peck that I've read, and both have left with me new perspectives to think on.
June 4, 2025
This story takes place all over: the LaSals mountains in Utah, Vietnam, Russia, Nairobi, Hawaii, New York. It is set in an alternate historical time line before, during and after the Vietnam War.
The plot of the story is Kattrim G. Mender, A young man and mormon, writing to the judges of his (fake) university about his (not real) research paper on Gilda Trillim, also a mormon, and a controversial author. Other characters in the book are Babs Lake, the longtime friend and possibly lover of Gilda, Gilda's family and other people who she encounters in her life.
Gilda Trillim is an enigmatic author/artist and she lived a controversial life. It includes examples of her writing, letters she wrote or were written about her, interview from people who knew her, newspaper articles and journal entries. It is hard to explain what happens, from her spending a year trying to "understand" an apple seed, to teaching rats how to sing. It tries to be philosophical about free will and our connections to everything from people to atoms and molecules and of course that apple seed.
There is a descriptive sexual scene that does not explicitly state is between two women but it is heavily implied that it is. It made me uncomfortable. There is quite a bit of violence in a POW camp including a rape and torture, A hand is burned off and rats are both killed and kill. The language is clean.
I did not like this book when I first started reading it because it is bizzare and unconventional. However halfway through I started highlighting lines that had great meaning and insight for me and when it was finished I felt like I had been on a terrible and wonderful journey.
The book fits into no category that I know but it did an excellent job at world building. I was immersed in Gilda's world and wanted to look into some of the things and places mentioned to see if they actually exist because they became that real.
I would not recommend this book to just anyone. This book is for a careful reader who enjoys story elements and can appreciate an author trying something outside of the box.
The plot of the story is Kattrim G. Mender, A young man and mormon, writing to the judges of his (fake) university about his (not real) research paper on Gilda Trillim, also a mormon, and a controversial author. Other characters in the book are Babs Lake, the longtime friend and possibly lover of Gilda, Gilda's family and other people who she encounters in her life.
Gilda Trillim is an enigmatic author/artist and she lived a controversial life. It includes examples of her writing, letters she wrote or were written about her, interview from people who knew her, newspaper articles and journal entries. It is hard to explain what happens, from her spending a year trying to "understand" an apple seed, to teaching rats how to sing. It tries to be philosophical about free will and our connections to everything from people to atoms and molecules and of course that apple seed.
There is a descriptive sexual scene that does not explicitly state is between two women but it is heavily implied that it is. It made me uncomfortable. There is quite a bit of violence in a POW camp including a rape and torture, A hand is burned off and rats are both killed and kill. The language is clean.
I did not like this book when I first started reading it because it is bizzare and unconventional. However halfway through I started highlighting lines that had great meaning and insight for me and when it was finished I felt like I had been on a terrible and wonderful journey.
The book fits into no category that I know but it did an excellent job at world building. I was immersed in Gilda's world and wanted to look into some of the things and places mentioned to see if they actually exist because they became that real.
I would not recommend this book to just anyone. This book is for a careful reader who enjoys story elements and can appreciate an author trying something outside of the box.
December 15, 2017
I told my brother the other day that Steve Peck's books usually blow my mind. His writing is so unlike anything else I've read. Gilda Trillim is no exception, and I think it's my favorite Peck novel yet. It's a delightfully bizarre book; the structure is a fictional thesis about a mysterious minimalist writer whose life includes apparently unbelievable episodes. Gilda seeks meaning, and finds the divine in some significant (yet atypical) spiritual experiences. Her story asks and answers important questions about being human, freedom, love, grace, and how we perceive and manage religious experience. There is both ridiculousness and great beauty in this novel.
I read this book with a pencil in hand, and have marked many passages. There are inside jokes and references (probably lots I didn't get), as well as references to real philosophers and thinkers. I love that Peck chose rats, a generally abhorred species, for Gilda to connect with. I love that Katt, the writer of the thesis, is a shepherd, too. To quote Babs (p. 62): "As it always is with Gilda, however, it's been a wild and keen inward adventure." I love Gilda herself, and I'm glad I was able to follow along on her adventure.
And to end, here's advice from Gilda herself: "All I can do is encourage you to enter into the world with open and daring eyes and see how the wonder and grandeur of this world manifests itself to you." (p. 204)
Note a little language; also one vignette has some sexual content. Some may also be interested to know that Peck has an expansive view of Mormon theology and its possibilities.
I read this book with a pencil in hand, and have marked many passages. There are inside jokes and references (probably lots I didn't get), as well as references to real philosophers and thinkers. I love that Peck chose rats, a generally abhorred species, for Gilda to connect with. I love that Katt, the writer of the thesis, is a shepherd, too. To quote Babs (p. 62): "As it always is with Gilda, however, it's been a wild and keen inward adventure." I love Gilda herself, and I'm glad I was able to follow along on her adventure.
And to end, here's advice from Gilda herself: "All I can do is encourage you to enter into the world with open and daring eyes and see how the wonder and grandeur of this world manifests itself to you." (p. 204)
Note a little language; also one vignette has some sexual content. Some may also be interested to know that Peck has an expansive view of Mormon theology and its possibilities.
January 17, 2018
It’s more than a little disconcerting to read a book, not enjoy it, wonder what the point of it is, be unable to relate to the main protagonist, find some of it tedious and other bits distasteful, get bored and skip bits – and then look at the reviews and find the novel being consistently rated 5* with many fulsome and intelligent reviews. What did I miss? How come, even after reading the reviews, although I am better informed, I’m still unimpressed by this unusual, but for me ultimately unsatisfying novel? The book follows the fortunes and adventures of Gilda Trillim, from her beginnings on an Idaho potato farm to an orthodox convent in the Soviet Union to professional badminton player to prisoner in the Vietnam War – which is where the rats come in. It tackles themes of identity, spirituality, the meaning of life and what it means to be human and so on – but not in a way that made me want to read on. I’ve learnt that this is Mormon fiction, but I’m not informed enough to know what this really means. If I did, would I appreciate the book more? Perhaps. As it is though, this is definitely not a book for me and I remain bewildered by its acclaim.
October 25, 2017
I haven't put a new book on my All-Time Favorites shelf for many months, but Gilda Trillim holds a place of honor on this shelf of mine, now and in perpetuity. Admittedly, I was at first put off by the idea of rats, and that a woman would be a shepherdess of them, but this amazing book is about much more than rats. Gilda is a gifted writer, scientist, badminton player, survivor of a Vietnam POW camp, and woman who seeks answers to the greatest questions of life. What is the "is-ness" of things? How can one know it? How do one's relationships influence and give meaning to one's life? How does my own experience of the world and the divine differ from the instructions and pronouncements made by others? Who do I listen to? A host of additional questions receive Peck's fascinatingly original gaze and thoughtful erudition. He doesn't just ask great questions through Gilda; he answers them with penetrating and emotional honesty and exquisite prose. Trust me, if you've asked any of these types of questions, you will LOVE this book too.
December 31, 2024
There are so many delightful surprises in this book: The loving, lived-in feel of the landscapes from Moab to Russia, Gilda's amazing imagined masterpieces of object-oriented ontology (I want to read her list novel, and the drawer biome is pure genius), the description of Heavenly Mother (love the shoes), and, most of all, the harrowing description of women who have been moved out of the proximity of other women, and the havoc that it piles on their lives. This is the best book I read this year, maybe in the last 5 years. I predict it will end up being one of the great Mormon-adjacent novels of all time.
June 7, 2018
I adore Steven L. Peck’s writing. His fiction is brilliant, thought provoking, and weird. This one fell flat though. I think it was the weirdness. It is something that usually really works for Peck, but it was just too much this time. The format also left something to be desired. Many times Gilda would talk about something that just felt like the author was philosophizing through her. This left holes in the suspension of disbelief.
The writing skill and brilliance was still there. But this one wasn’t my thing. Oh well.
The writing skill and brilliance was still there. But this one wasn’t my thing. Oh well.
June 16, 2025
There are some possible echoes of an obscure experimental band that I love (Geggy Tah) in this absurdist delight from our Prof. Peck: potato farms in Idaho, badminton matches, granddaddies and mothers, milk and menstruation, rocking chairs, otters as girls, distress over soul clutter, generosity and gratitude, space, love as space heater, and boundary-pushing music that reshapes reality. I’m in love.
July 29, 2018
Well, this novel was more bizarre than "The Scholar of Moab". That made it a fun ride with plenty of unexpected twists. It was interesting to read some unique perspectives on eternity, time and space.
I enjoyed it, maybe because I read mostly non-fiction and this was a nice change from the current bizarre political world we inhabit and about which I read.
I enjoyed it, maybe because I read mostly non-fiction and this was a nice change from the current bizarre political world we inhabit and about which I read.
September 26, 2021
I found the scene involving Gilda and the homeless man to be incredibly moving and one I will remember for some time. There are lots of scenes in this book that I think will stay with me; the apple seeds, the ayahuascan retreat and the visions and the lasting mark, the prison camp, the Vietnamese shrine ... wonderful.
February 9, 2018
Gilda Trillim is an unusual and thought provoking book. I especially enjoyed the poem on creation, though I’m not a huge fan of poetry. Much of this book reminded me of Peck’s previous book Evolution of Faith, he covers many of the same ideas through a different genre.
October 5, 2017
A delectably strange book that gets at the meaning of relationships, evolution, embodiment, and life itself.
April 17, 2018
Steve Peck has done it again. No author makes the unfamiliar seem so familiar and the familiar seem so unfamiliar as he does. (Finished this a while ago but forgot to rate!)
May 5, 2018
Here's my review for Deseret News: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...
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