“Hints of Impermanence: Ghosts and Orphans in Gail Godwin’s Grief Cottage,” by Kerstin W. Shands

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

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 […]