Melissa Pritchard -- Reading 0 comments

Melissa Pritchard’s stories often cross an invisible line—between normality, as we usually define it, and, well, the not-normal. The line might be on the border between the erotic and the holy, between wisdom and folly, perhaps even between reality and fiction. In short, Pritchard has a way of knocking the reader off balance. And yet it is precisely when we are unsure of ourselves that we become open to revelation. Pritchard unsettles us but not for shock value, except in the sense that the presence of the holy—or the hunger for it—can shock us. Take, for example, her story from Image #61, “Pelagia, Holy Fool.” This tale of a famous Russian “staretz” confronts us with a crazy woman—dirty, unhinged, willing to accept abuse and yet able to dish out prophetic jeremiads that hit their targets squarely between the eyes—who is hardly an attractive figure. And yet she attracts hordes of pilgrims, including the Tsar himself. “The line between perceived madness and divine rapture is often tragically indistinct,” Pritchard notes in her web exclusive interview with Image. In all her stories, there’s an unembarrassed boldness of vision and it can be sheer exhilarating fun to be along for the ride. When it comes to the connection between the sacred and the erotic, unlike some writers who make this connection dour and joyless, Pritchard leavens it with comedy, keeping things anchored to terra firma. She is also in love with language: she can make it ornate and playful and suggestive in ways that are fresh and arresting. As one student of hers put it: “There’s a kind of nineteenth-century air to Melissa’s writing.” Victorian? Postmodern? Well, that’s just another line Pritchard is happy to skip across.

Read Melissa Pritchard's Pelagia, Holy Fool -- featured in Issue 61-- here.