Bauer introduces readers first to what she terms the organic story cycle of Gilchrist's work. She then examines the stories and novels alongside those of four other major American writers, arguing that Gilchrist has transformed both the American patriarchal short story tradition epitomized by Hemingway and the southern patriarchal literary tradition epitomized by Faulkner. Gilchrist, she says, thus joins the ranks of two other women writers -- Katherine Anne Porter and Kate Chopin -- who have subverted the patriarchy. But Gilchrist also transforms their writing, she contends, by depicting female characters who embody refreshing, usually positive strategies for coping with oppression.

This intertextual reading reveals the traditions out of which Gilchrist's work emerges while illuminating her substantial contribution to the American traditions of the short story, southern literature, and women's literature.