The Courts of Love: Stories - Hardcover

The short stories in the first half of this collection feature Nora Jane Whittington, one of Ellen Gilchrist's familiar characters, and through Nora Jane and her family and friends, Gilchrist explores the complex balancing of relationships. The stories in the second half have many varying points of view--including a non-human one, that of a bear cub. These thoughtful tales, alive with vivid description, revolve around the tensions between the mind and the body, and between what is desired and what is achievable.

The Court of Love opens with a series of stories about Nora Jane Whittington, who, once upon a time long ago, was a runaway teenage hipple. In a famous Gilchrist story she dressed as a nun and robbed a bar in New Orleans. Now, happily married and the mother of twins, Nora Jane returns to college and finds herself faced with a series of disasters that threaten her blissful life: a chance encounter between her husband and an old boyfriend, who fathered one of the twins; the assassination of a visiting writer; and a camping trip that nearly proves fatal. The resolution of these complications, aided by a mysterious visit from Leonardo da Vinci, culminates in the adaptation of two waifs, the marriage of an old friend, and the introduction of two new families into Gilchrist's galaxy of characters. The nine stories that follow, collectivity entitled "Past", explore the hazards of recapturing and reviving old affairs. Using new and familiar characters, these stories shed new light on the oldest and most powerful emotion.