Gaige, Amity 1972–

PERSONAL: Born 1972. Education: Brown University, B.A.; University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES: Home—Cranston, RI. Office—University of Rhode Island, Department of English, Independence Hall, 60 Upper College Rd., Ste. 2, Kingston, RI 02881-0802. E-mail—agaige@etal.uri.edu

CAREER: Writer and educator. University of Rhode Island, instructor in English, 1999–.

AWARDS, HONORS: Truman Capote fellowship; Teaching Writing fellowship; Fulbright fellowship.

WRITINGS:

We Are a Thunderstorm (poems), photographs by Amity Gaige, Landmark Editions (Kansas City, MO), 1990.

O My Darling (novel), Other Press (New York, NY), 2005.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A novel.

SIDELIGHTS: Amity Gaige's debut novel, O My Darling, is, according to Booklist contributor Deborah Donovan, an examination of how the past can abruptly "pilot one's life in totally unexpected directions." Past events mar the marriage of Charlotte and Clark; she was adopted as a two-year-old, while he has a mother who suffers from depression. After the mother commits suicide, Clarke takes a teaching position in a high school and uses money from her bequest to pay for a house. For a time the couple's life seems on an even keel, but then either literal or metaphoric ghosts begin haunting Clark, and Charlotte starts feeling trapped. Donovan and other critics noted the lack of plotting in the novel, but Jennifer Reese, writing in Entertainment Weekly, was willing to forgive that flaw in light of Gaige's sympathetic characterization and "lovely writing [that] make the novel sparkle." Similarly, in a Publishers Weekly review, a contributor noted that "Crystalline insights into the nature of love," coupled with glimmers "of narrative brilliance," enliven a first novel marred only by a sketchy plot." A critic for Kirkus Reviews also praised the "graceful, bright, modern writing" in Gaige's first novel.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 15, 2004, Deborah Donovan, review of O My Darling, p. 1264.

Entertainment Weekly, May 13, 2005, Jennifer Reese, review of O My Darling, p. 95.

Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2005, review of O My Darling, p. 70.

Publishers Weekly, February 28, 2005, review of O My Darling, p. 40.

ONLINE

University of Rhode Island Web site, http://www.uri.edu/ (July 7, 2005), "Amity Gaige."