What if the old maid of Amherst wasn't an old maid at all? Her older brother, Austin, spoke of Emily as his ?wild sister.? Jerome Charyn, continuing his exploration of American history through fiction, has written a startling novel about Emily Dickinson in her own voice, with all its characteristic modulations that he learned from her letters and poems. The poet dons a hundred veils, alternately playing wounded lover, penitent, and female devil. We meet the significant characters of her life, including her tempestuous sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert; her brooding father, Edward; and the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, who may have inspired some of her greatest letters and poems. Charyn has also invented characters, including an impoverished fellow student at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, who will betray her; and a handyman named Tom, who will obsess Emily throughout her life. Charyn has written an extraordinary adventure that will disturb and delight.
Jerome Charyn's novel reveals the passions and inner world of the famously reclusive poet Emily Dickinson. Charyn draws both on biographical characters and fictional ones--he imagines both an early lover of hers and a girl who betrayed her during her female seminary education--to create the dramatic arc of the book. Narrated by Dickinson herself, the novel, by attempting to replicate Dickinson's sly and slant use of language, is a marvelous experiment in style.
- Genre: Fiction + Literature Genres, Fiction + Literature Themes
- Subgenre: Politics, Psychology, General, Historical Fiction, Literary Genres + Types of Novels, Arts + Entertainment
- Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
- Pages: 348
- Language: English
- Format: hardcover
- Release Date: February 22, 2010
- Date Published: February 22, 2010
- Author: Jerome Charyn