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Pilgrims  By  cover art

Pilgrims

By: Elizabeth Gilbert
Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
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Editorial reviews

Elizabeth Gilbert published Pilgrims, her beautiful, bristly short story collection, in 1997, nine years before Eat, Pray, Love, her exuberant, raw meditation on divorce, depression, and healing, made her suddenly famous enough for Julia Roberts to slip on gladiator sandals and beads to play her in a film version of the book. It’s a shame that Pilgrims will now probably be forever eclipsed by Eat, Pray, Love since it, too, peels back convention to reveal, with empathy and droll language, the primitive nuttiness and courage that lends ordinary people heart.

By definition, modern pilgrims are wanderers, struggling through daily grinds to find redemption, or the true purpose of life. Each of the tart, spiny characters inhabiting Gilbert’s 12 stories is searching for something her pilgrims hang out on ranches and in bars, in remote corners of Wyoming and Montana, and vegetable markets in the Bronx. There is sturdy Martha Knox, a ranch cook, with a dark, brown braid “thick as a girl’s arm”, and Rose, an elderly widow who drives a kindergarten school bus, crammed, one morning, with ghosts, all adoring suitors from her unchaste past. None of Gilbert’s characters is immediately charming, but all compel with their routine habits and dustbowl looks.

Coleen Marlo, narrator of Pilgrims, has a silk slip of a voice that ably roams from the coarse drawl of a rodeo cowboy to the hollow whine of Babette, a bawdy Manhattan nightclub singer. Marlo passes up the easy fixes of pinning characters with cartoonish regional accents or undermining their essential dignity by assuming an absence of formal education translates into broken English. Pilgrims is both buoyant and prickly. Under Marlo’s finespun, intelligent narration, listeners will find an intuitive collaborator to Gilbert’s good flow. Nita Rao

Publisher's summary

When Elizabeth Gilbert's story collection Pilgrims first appeared in 1997, it immediately announced her compelling voice, her comic touch, and her amazing ear for dialogue. Brave and unforgettable, the heroes of Pilgrims are sure to strike a chord with fans old and new.
©2007 Elizabeth Gilbert (P)2007 Penguin

Critic reviews

"A fine first collection of 12 stories that are richly varied in setting and content, and enlivened by their author's flair for vigorous dialogue and concise summary statement." ( Kirkus Reviews)

What listeners say about Pilgrims

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Elizabeth Gilbert is amazing !!!!

Elizabeth Gilbert is amazing !!!! Like a magician she pulled these magnificent stories out of thin air !!!! All her work is first rate !!!

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A convoluted story.

A good listen. Fun to hear story read by author.
Needed to follow closely to see how it wove together.

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so many stories. so many adventures

I was blown away, yet again from another spectacular Elizabeth Gilbert creation. I will hold this next to many other favorites of mine. thank you, Liz.

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Wasn’t impressed

Barely got through the second chapter. Just could not get into it. Maybe it’s the storyline or maybe the style of the narrator. Not sure because I’ve listened to another Elizabeth Gilbert book and loved it.

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