Alice Elliott Dark's In The Gloaming: Stories

Understanding gloaming GLOH-ming, noun: Twilight; dusk; the fall of the evening.

In the gloaming. A time of transition; the ending of the long mundane day, entering into the excitement of the unknown. Alice Elliott Dark 's collection of ten short stories titled "In the Gloaming: Stories" chronicles ""the distraction of human love" in its many guises. These stories especially focus on the complexity of the relationship between parents and their adult children. The need to connect with others seems threatened at times by how little understanding we truly have of one another" (Miksanek). This is consistent to the theme of "In the Gloaming." In this short story, Alice Elliott Dark portrays the rekindling and strengthening of the bond between a mother and her son. These two proverbial strangers are brought back together by a challenging tragedy. This is clearly a story of growth; they spend the last moments they have together getting to know and understand one another.

"In the Gloaming" powerfully embodies the idea that often times it takes serious and sometimes ominous situations, in this case, mortality, for one to realize they know nothing about the person whom they should be most closely connected. It took Laird dying of AIDS for both he and his
It wasn 't until one evening when Laird and his mother were alone after dinner that he became inclined to talk with her, honestly and openly. His sudden candour came during the gloaming. "The magical period between light and darkness…the time between the fear of ensuing darkness and the excitement of the stepping into the unknown; the ending of the day 's long work and entering into a magical world that lies on the edge of mundane"