NOT BY STRANGE GODS

Six short stories selected from her published work as her own favorites. All are typical of the elusive quality that distinguishes her work, shadow rather than substance. All have a strong folk quality of the fey genre, as she writes of her Kentucky simple folk in poetic prose, with touches of their superstition, their legends. There are four romantic vignettes, turned towards the inner conflicts; the lead story, The Haunted Palace, is the strangest of them all -- the tale of a young share-cropper and his inarticulate wife, who bring their sheep for their lambing to a ruined old mansion. Elizabeth Roberts writes for a limited but discerning audience, she is almost too fragile, too esoteric for the average reader.