Gain Rhoda: A Life In Stories Author Ellen Gilchrist Presented In Text
on Rhoda: A Life in Stories
Ellen Gilchrist
novel is a marvelous character study done short stories, Rhoda was truly a cantankerous, almost hateful little girl, She grew into adolescence as someone who needed to be the center of things, Everything was all about her, In her adulthood, Rhoda became a tamed, yet accomplished, woman who managed to tie together all the pastlife episodes into one person, Rhoda is a very fun read,
A series of short stories about Rhoda a narcissistic, wild, complicated, feisty woman whom you can't help but like most of the time.
Though by the lastpages or so I was ready to see how it would all end, I also found it a little disconcerting in the short story formatthe flow of it all I guess you might say, I reread Rhoda after many years, I chose it for my book club because they wanted lighter reading than the heavy ones we usually read, We all liked the young Rhoda much more than the adult Rhoda, I like the adult Rhoda DIFFERENTLY, Reading this book led me to read the collection of Anna stories, Ellen Gilchrist has skillfully interwoven stories that chronicle the life of Rhoda Manning from early adolescence to late middle age, Rhoda is the very definition of a narcissistic personality thrroughout her selfabsorbed life, leaving in her wake bewilderment and harm to her husbands and children in her quest for immediate gratification.
This book is very well written with a main character who is memorable for her lack of any redeeming qualities, I really like linked short stories and this did not disappoint, Rhoda is a unique character, feisty, difficult, funny story and fearless, Covering from the age ofto hers, Rhoda makes no apologies for her life which is filled with sex, selfishness and ultimately poetry, Ellen Gilchrist is a joy to read, There were moments that I was so attuned to Rhoda's wavelength that I was utterly transported from my here and now, Such keenly felt character studies are rare, and this one was a true pleasure, I have read almost all of Ellen Gilchrist's books and this one is my favorite, Starcarbon was the most powerful, but her Rhoda character is by far the best and this is a whole book of Rhoda, I met Ms. Gilchrist a few times in Fayetteville and she is so charming, I also love Drunk with Love and In the Land of Dreamy Dreams, I wish Rhoda would reappear in thes Id love to catch up with her, Rhoda is the type of character that you know, want to know, want to be, hope not to be, Shes who your mom and grandma told stories about from high school and who they maybe could have been if not for you, How does she do that I thought the stories with Rhoda as narrator worked so much better than third person narrator, bc maybe Rhoda is Gilchrist, is the woman she is and wants to be and hates and knows so well.
The last four stories really didnt do it for me until I got to the last page, I felt that she had lost her mojo and as Rhoda got older Gilchrist hadnt been able to stick with her character low and behold Rhoda defined herself at ageas she did at.
Fabulous read, fabulous character, fabulous person, "Rhoda didn't actually read books, She inhabited them. She moved into the page and across the barriers of space and time, "
"He was counting the months he might live, He thought it would be twentyfour but it turned out to be a lifetime after all, " I truly enjoyed Net of Jewels when I was in my early's and came across a cheap copy of this recently and had to reacquaint myself with the selfish, impetuous, but completely adorable Rhoda.
A woman who truly lives not matter the cost to herself or anyone else, In this anthology, readers are for the first time able to read all of the Rhoda stories by Ellen Gilchrist, Before this, the stories have been released at various times and in various media but are finally all collected in one volume, Rhoda is one of this author's favorite characters, We see Rhoda starting out as an indulged child, a tomboy who is the only daughter in a family of boys and the apple of her millionaire father's eye.
She feels she is ugly with her red hair, freckles and chunky body,
Later, we see Rhoda as a teenager, She has slimmed down and discovered boys, She is desperate to try sex and has it with the first boy she can, At college, she goes to another college for a football weekend, meets and sleeps with a man, and soon impulsively marries him, The babies start arriving, one quickly after the other until Rhoda has three boys and is tired of her husband,
We follow Rhoda over the years, In her twenties and thirties, she has several husbands and lovers, She is never an attentive mother, feeling that the children keep her from what she needs to do with her life, although she isn't sure what that is.
The love of her life is a former sports star, a man whose records remain long after he leaves the field, They have an affair that lasts years, but he is married and has no plans to leave his wife and children,
Rhoda decides to become a writer and goes to a small college where she writes short stories and starts to get published, She becomes a novelist and has success but as she ages, she longs for the days when she turned men's' heads, As she ages, she starts to value her family again and to spend more time with them, Rhoda is a character readers will remember for a long time, This anthology is recommended for readers who like short stories, My whole family loves Rhoda and Ellen Gilchrist! That's why we're all going to
the BookIt Repertory Theater to see a play based on her character.
She's sassy. This was a letdown for me, The first story was one of the best things I have read ever, Rhoda is a totally hilarious, spunky, and unapologeticyear old with a serious ax to grind, I had such high hopes, But this collection of short stories goes quickly downhill from there, As an adult Rhoda is whiny, irritating, and crass, with believable but thoroughly unentertaining arrested development issues, With all of the ridiculous talk about her sex life and accompanying crass vocabulary I would expect this book to have been written by a man.
I just have a few stories left but I'm struggling to finish it, My one hope is that she dies some kind of hilarious and wittily narrated death, which would be the only way Rhoda could redeem herself to me.
It was a good book, short stories, my favorite, I was about to donate until I came to "The Uninsured" at the end of the book, These letters were way before Obamacare and health care reformation, I'm not keeping the entire book, but I am taking these pages out for some noble purpose, not sure what yet, She kind of said FU to the insurance companies until Medicare kicks in, Kind of brave until you realize, she has some money and is very healthy, Of course, her preexisting condition of psychotherapy does give her insurance companies cause to ponder, That is one thing we no longer have to fear, at leats until, I love Rhoda Manning! Her life is full of surprises and excitement, Her sense of humor hits me on many levels, This book of short stories about Rhoda's life is one I will keep on my bookshelf to pull out whenever I want to experience the inexplicable life of Rhoda.
Thank you to Ellen Gilchrist for telling Rhoda's life, Ellen Gilchrist is the author that brought me back to reading for pleasure after college, Reading her short stories makes you feel smarter, funnier, and sexier, and Rhoda is her most alluring character, Inyears of working in a public library I only read one novel by Ellen Gilchrist, but I'd always pause when I walked down the aisle with her books, knowing that I'd have to satisfy the itch and read more someday.
The cover of Rhoda, A Life in Stories was particularly seductive and now that I have finally read it I will not be able to wait nearly so long to read another one.
Everything the critics have written about this title is true and perfect and I have little to add, If you read nothing else, read the first story, Revenge, And the ending of The Tree Fort is tremendous, A Wedding in Jackson is another favorite, In her introduction, Gilchrist writes:
, . . I have written many stories about Rhoda, Some of them are blatantly autobiographical and
some are made up, Many are true to the real essence of the Rhoda I created on that fall morning,
Others miss the mark, If I was in a bad mood or out of sorts with myself, I would savage Rhoda,
This is helpful information if you're looking for a consistency of character, In some stories, Rhoda is a bit muchcareless, narcissisticbut she's always powerfully, intriguingly her zestful self, and her author's writing is always brilliant as well,
Some of these stories are better than others, though she is an artful practioner of the "southern gothic" style and genre, Rhoda reminds me of friends of my mother's, Over the past ten years, Gilchrist fans have enjoyed glimpses of headstrong, redheaded Rhoda in five previous collections, Here, for the first time, are the collected Rhoda stories including two new ones offering a fullblown portrait of a woman worth waiting for: one of contemporary literature's most enchanting characters, in all her wicked glory.
She wasnt even so bad that she fell into the "love to hate" category, If you ask me, dont waste your time with this one, Good thing I got it from a free swap of I would get a refund, .
A series of short stories about Rhoda a narcissistic, wild, complicated, feisty woman whom you can't help but like most of the time.
Though by the lastpages or so I was ready to see how it would all end, I also found it a little disconcerting in the short story formatthe flow of it all I guess you might say, I reread Rhoda after many years, I chose it for my book club because they wanted lighter reading than the heavy ones we usually read, We all liked the young Rhoda much more than the adult Rhoda, I like the adult Rhoda DIFFERENTLY, Reading this book led me to read the collection of Anna stories, Ellen Gilchrist has skillfully interwoven stories that chronicle the life of Rhoda Manning from early adolescence to late middle age, Rhoda is the very definition of a narcissistic personality thrroughout her selfabsorbed life, leaving in her wake bewilderment and harm to her husbands and children in her quest for immediate gratification.
This book is very well written with a main character who is memorable for her lack of any redeeming qualities, I really like linked short stories and this did not disappoint, Rhoda is a unique character, feisty, difficult, funny story and fearless, Covering from the age ofto hers, Rhoda makes no apologies for her life which is filled with sex, selfishness and ultimately poetry, Ellen Gilchrist is a joy to read, There were moments that I was so attuned to Rhoda's wavelength that I was utterly transported from my here and now, Such keenly felt character studies are rare, and this one was a true pleasure, I have read almost all of Ellen Gilchrist's books and this one is my favorite, Starcarbon was the most powerful, but her Rhoda character is by far the best and this is a whole book of Rhoda, I met Ms. Gilchrist a few times in Fayetteville and she is so charming, I also love Drunk with Love and In the Land of Dreamy Dreams, I wish Rhoda would reappear in thes Id love to catch up with her, Rhoda is the type of character that you know, want to know, want to be, hope not to be, Shes who your mom and grandma told stories about from high school and who they maybe could have been if not for you, How does she do that I thought the stories with Rhoda as narrator worked so much better than third person narrator, bc maybe Rhoda is Gilchrist, is the woman she is and wants to be and hates and knows so well.
The last four stories really didnt do it for me until I got to the last page, I felt that she had lost her mojo and as Rhoda got older Gilchrist hadnt been able to stick with her character low and behold Rhoda defined herself at ageas she did at.
Fabulous read, fabulous character, fabulous person, "Rhoda didn't actually read books, She inhabited them. She moved into the page and across the barriers of space and time, "
"He was counting the months he might live, He thought it would be twentyfour but it turned out to be a lifetime after all, " I truly enjoyed Net of Jewels when I was in my early's and came across a cheap copy of this recently and had to reacquaint myself with the selfish, impetuous, but completely adorable Rhoda.
A woman who truly lives not matter the cost to herself or anyone else, In this anthology, readers are for the first time able to read all of the Rhoda stories by Ellen Gilchrist, Before this, the stories have been released at various times and in various media but are finally all collected in one volume, Rhoda is one of this author's favorite characters, We see Rhoda starting out as an indulged child, a tomboy who is the only daughter in a family of boys and the apple of her millionaire father's eye.
She feels she is ugly with her red hair, freckles and chunky body,
Later, we see Rhoda as a teenager, She has slimmed down and discovered boys, She is desperate to try sex and has it with the first boy she can, At college, she goes to another college for a football weekend, meets and sleeps with a man, and soon impulsively marries him, The babies start arriving, one quickly after the other until Rhoda has three boys and is tired of her husband,
We follow Rhoda over the years, In her twenties and thirties, she has several husbands and lovers, She is never an attentive mother, feeling that the children keep her from what she needs to do with her life, although she isn't sure what that is.
The love of her life is a former sports star, a man whose records remain long after he leaves the field, They have an affair that lasts years, but he is married and has no plans to leave his wife and children,
Rhoda decides to become a writer and goes to a small college where she writes short stories and starts to get published, She becomes a novelist and has success but as she ages, she longs for the days when she turned men's' heads, As she ages, she starts to value her family again and to spend more time with them, Rhoda is a character readers will remember for a long time, This anthology is recommended for readers who like short stories, My whole family loves Rhoda and Ellen Gilchrist! That's why we're all going to
the BookIt Repertory Theater to see a play based on her character.
She's sassy. This was a letdown for me, The first story was one of the best things I have read ever, Rhoda is a totally hilarious, spunky, and unapologeticyear old with a serious ax to grind, I had such high hopes, But this collection of short stories goes quickly downhill from there, As an adult Rhoda is whiny, irritating, and crass, with believable but thoroughly unentertaining arrested development issues, With all of the ridiculous talk about her sex life and accompanying crass vocabulary I would expect this book to have been written by a man.
I just have a few stories left but I'm struggling to finish it, My one hope is that she dies some kind of hilarious and wittily narrated death, which would be the only way Rhoda could redeem herself to me.
It was a good book, short stories, my favorite, I was about to donate until I came to "The Uninsured" at the end of the book, These letters were way before Obamacare and health care reformation, I'm not keeping the entire book, but I am taking these pages out for some noble purpose, not sure what yet, She kind of said FU to the insurance companies until Medicare kicks in, Kind of brave until you realize, she has some money and is very healthy, Of course, her preexisting condition of psychotherapy does give her insurance companies cause to ponder, That is one thing we no longer have to fear, at leats until, I love Rhoda Manning! Her life is full of surprises and excitement, Her sense of humor hits me on many levels, This book of short stories about Rhoda's life is one I will keep on my bookshelf to pull out whenever I want to experience the inexplicable life of Rhoda.
Thank you to Ellen Gilchrist for telling Rhoda's life, Ellen Gilchrist is the author that brought me back to reading for pleasure after college, Reading her short stories makes you feel smarter, funnier, and sexier, and Rhoda is her most alluring character, Inyears of working in a public library I only read one novel by Ellen Gilchrist, but I'd always pause when I walked down the aisle with her books, knowing that I'd have to satisfy the itch and read more someday.
The cover of Rhoda, A Life in Stories was particularly seductive and now that I have finally read it I will not be able to wait nearly so long to read another one.
Everything the critics have written about this title is true and perfect and I have little to add, If you read nothing else, read the first story, Revenge, And the ending of The Tree Fort is tremendous, A Wedding in Jackson is another favorite, In her introduction, Gilchrist writes:
, . . I have written many stories about Rhoda, Some of them are blatantly autobiographical and
some are made up, Many are true to the real essence of the Rhoda I created on that fall morning,
Others miss the mark, If I was in a bad mood or out of sorts with myself, I would savage Rhoda,
This is helpful information if you're looking for a consistency of character, In some stories, Rhoda is a bit muchcareless, narcissisticbut she's always powerfully, intriguingly her zestful self, and her author's writing is always brilliant as well,
Some of these stories are better than others, though she is an artful practioner of the "southern gothic" style and genre, Rhoda reminds me of friends of my mother's, Over the past ten years, Gilchrist fans have enjoyed glimpses of headstrong, redheaded Rhoda in five previous collections, Here, for the first time, are the collected Rhoda stories including two new ones offering a fullblown portrait of a woman worth waiting for: one of contemporary literature's most enchanting characters, in all her wicked glory.
With a high libido and reckless courage to match, Rhoda is one of those irresistible people who never hold back or take convention too seriously.
In these twentythree stories, arranged chronologically, we follow Rhoda from a precocious kid with a moviestar complex to a coed who makes love to a fraternity boy, and the next week elopes with him, to a middleaged writer looking for a fling in the age of AIDS.
She wasnt even so bad that she fell into the "love to hate" category, If you ask me, dont waste your time with this one, Good thing I got it from a free swap of I would get a refund, .