Essay by Kerstin W. Shands Gail Godwin’s Heart: A Natural History of the Heart-Filled Life stems from a moment in time when Godwin had just re-read Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. She had been thinking about a new novel regarding “a woman’s journey into a heart of darkness where she would have to confront her shadow” […]
“Craft and Conviction: Gail Godwin’s History of the Heart,” by Kerstin W. Shands
September 1, 2021 by Leave a Comment
“Friends in Writing: Bloomian Jealousies in Gail Godwin’s Old Lovegood Girls,” Essay by Kerstin W. Shands
December 15, 2020 by Leave a Comment
Essay by Kerstin W. Shands A new novel by Gail Godwin is a treat. To enter the literary world created by Godwin is like stepping into a pleasant townhouse where spacious, sun-dappled rooms open up on the first floor. Then you notice that there are stairs, too, that may lead to other, more complex, secret, […]
Facing and Writing Trauma: Suffering and Survival in Post-traumatic America,” Essay by Kerstin W. Shands
December 1, 2020 by 1 Comment
Essay by Kerstin W. Shands When she was writing her book on trauma in American literature, Laura Castor could hardly have known that another traumatic time in American history would be just around the corner. The corona pandemic could be seen as a trauma on individual, national, and global levels, one that may well lead […]
“Hints of Impermanence: Ghosts and Orphans in Gail Godwin’s Grief Cottage,” by Kerstin W. Shands
February 14, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Essay by Kerstin W. Shands Gail Godwin’s new novel Grief Cottage (2017) is set in coastal South Carolina, an area rich in history, legend, and tradition. Evoking a real place and a real environment, Pawleys Island and the Isle of Palms, this novel introduces us to Grief Cottage, a profoundly charged site, a metaphorical rendezvous […]
“Performing Atonement: Regret, Responsibility, and Redemption in Gail Godwin’s ‘Flora,'” by Kerstin W. Shands
November 16, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Essay by Kerstin W. Shands There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse. (Seneca) There are things we can’t undo, but perhaps there is a kind of constructive remorse that could transform regrettable acts into something of service to life. (Godwin 1) Wistfully […]