The Annunciation
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Praise:
"Gilchrist's accomplished first novel is absorbing, rich, and evocative as she explores the heart and mind of a woman who has the courage to risk traveling an unconventional path in an effort to find the way to herself." —Publishers Weekly
"Women’s fiction par excellence … Amanda is in some ways a receptacle for current romantic clichés, but she is also a vivid character or dash and humor [who] has at last made her way to autonomy." —Harper's Magazine
"A fast-paced, often funny and touching novel." —Library Journal
"Both stylish and idiomatic—a rare and potent combination." —Times Literary Supplement
Ellen Gilchrist
Ellen Gilchrist (1935-2024) was author of several collections of short stories and novellas including The Cabal and Other Stories, Flights of Angels, The Age of Miracles, The Courts of Love, In the Land of Dreamy Dreams, Victory Over Japan (winner of the National Book Award), Drunk With Love, and I Cannot Get You Close Enough. She also wrote several novels, including The Anna Papers, Net of Jewels, Starcarbon, and Sarah Conley.
Read more from Ellen Gilchrist
Falling Through Space: The Journals of Ellen Gilchrist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Drunk with Love: A Book of Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLight Can Be Both Wave and Particle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anna Papers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Cannot Get You Close Enough Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Starcarbon: A Meditation on Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flights of Angels Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rhoda: A Life in Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSarah Conley Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Courts of Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cabal and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThings like the Truth: Out of My Later Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anabasis: A Journey to the Interior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Annunciation
Related ebooks
The Courts of Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stars Are Fire: by Anita Shreve | Conversation Starters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHomegoing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYou Want More: Selected Stories of George Singleton Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anabasis: A Journey to the Interior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rhoda: A Life in Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGalveston Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pleasure Was Mine: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Celebration! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cabal and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFlights of Angels Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Getaway Girls: A New Orleans Tale of Monsters, Mayhem and Moms Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTreeborne: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Things like the Truth: Out of My Later Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Our Souls at Night Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHoly City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Awakening Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Delta Wedding Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Light Lifting Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lake on Fire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSt. Ivo: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Man with Eight Pairs of Legs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTupelo Honey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Chinese Marriage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSarah Conley Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Study Guide for Michael Dorris's "A Yellow Raft in Blue Water" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary: "Orphan Train" by Christina Baker Kline | Discussion Prompts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Glimpse of Scarlet: And Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Willa Cather's "Death Comes for the Archbishop" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSongdogs: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Literary Fiction For You
Prophet Song: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piranesi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride and Prejudice: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Handmaid's Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen's Gambit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invisible Hour: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Who Have Never Known Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Woman in the Room: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tender Is the Flesh Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lagos Wife: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Annunciation
30 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5It's turning out to be a bit of a pot-boiler with cliched language. There's one awful blunder where the protagonist is supposed to know French and Italian but in a couple of places counts in French and Spanish, but to top it off says nieve instead of nueve for nine - nieve means snow. Still I'll keep reading to see if it actually talks much about translating.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Great first half, so-so second half -- but it was a very important book for me in my 20s, and my favorite for many years.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Well-written, yes, but I just couldn't care about these characters. I don't empathize with people who are so self-absorbed and who feel sorry for themselves despite having so many advantages.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ellen Gilchrist's first novel "The Annunciation" (1983) makes clear, from its title and cover illustration through the story itself, that it is a religious story, even though most of the time it is so irreligious it becomes easy to doubt the author really has matters of faith on her mind.The novel spans 30 years, from the birth of Amanda McGamey's first child to the birth of her second. These are not easy years for Amanda, primarily because of the circumstances surrounding that first birth. She is just 14 when, after having sex with her cousin, Guy, she gives birth, then has her daughter taken away by nuns and put up for adoption. That experience condemns her to three decades of negative reaction: depression, strong drink, marriage to a man she doesn't love and constant thoughts about her daughter.Amanda has little use for religion, especially the Catholic Church, yet she experiments with various Eastern faiths and practices, whatever happens to be faddish among the intelligentsia at the time. She is a smart, attractive, charismatic woman who starts putting her life together when she abandons New Orleans, where she suspects her daughter lives somewhere, for Fayetteville, Ark. (where Gilchrist herself lives) and wins an opportunity to translate a book of French poetry. Illustrative of her personality, Amanda tries to convince the publisher to change the original poems to match her translation, which she is convinced is superior.Meanwhile, she begins a torrid romance with an unemployed man two decades younger. She keeps giving him money even though he always spends it on self-destructive binges.Last Saturday night I heard Irish singer Cathie Ryan perform in St. Pete with the Florida Orchestra. She sang a song she said illustrated one of the guiding principles of her life: "Don't quit five minutes before the miracle." That line works for Amanda McGamey, too. For all her mistakes and disappointments, she doesn't quit. Her miracle is no virgin birth, whatever the novel's title and cover may suggest. It's 30 years too late for that. Yet smaller, more everyday miracles can be life-changing, too, and that's what Gilchrist gives her.