Voices in the Dead House - (American Novels) by Norman Lock (Paperback)

About the Book

"After the Union Army's defeat at Fredericksburg in 1862, Walt Whitman and Louisa May Alcott converge on Washington to attend to the sick, wounded, and dying. Both of these iconic Americans, known for bucking the conventions of their day, find their principles and beliefs tested by grueling and grisly duties. Walt Whitman was a man of many contradictions: egocentric yet compassionate, vain though frequently transported by the beauty of others, he was a bigot who sang the song of all mankind as the great poet of democracy. He delighted in the pleasures of the flesh and had no patience for religiosity but was moved by the spiritual in all men and women, from janitor to president. Louisa May Alcott, still beloved for Little Women, was an intense, intellectual, independent woman, an abolitionist and a suffragist, who was compelled to write saccharine magazine stories to save her mother and siblings from the poorhouse but aspired to true, unsentimental artistic expression. Alcott would write of her Civil War nursing experiences in Hospital Sketches and Whitman in his poem "The Wound Dresser", from which these vivid fictional evocations are in part drawn. In this double portrait, Lock deftly captures the special musicality and preoccupations of each writer as they confront war's devastation and grapple with the politics of a racist reality that continues to haunt us today"--

Book Synopsis

Walt Whitman and Louisa May Alcott meet the horrors of the Civil War as they minister to its casualties

After the Union Army's defeat at Fredericksburg in 1862, Walt Whitman and Louisa May Alcott converge on Washington to nurse the sick, wounded, and dying. Whitman was a man of many contradictions: egocentric yet compassionate, impatient with religiosity yet moved by the spiritual in all humankind, bigoted yet soon to become known as the great poet of democracy. Alcott was an intense, intellectual, independent woman, an abolitionist and suffragist, who was compelled by financial circumstance to publish saccharine magazine stories yet would go on to write the enduring and beloved Little Women. As Lock captures the musicality of their unique voices and their encounters with luminaries ranging from Lincoln to battlefield photographer Mathew Brady to reformer Dorothea Dix, he deftly renders the war's impact on their personal and artistic development.

Inspired by Whitman's poem "The Wound-Dresser" and Alcott's Hospital Sketches, the ninth stand-alone book in The American Novels series is a masterful dual portrait of two iconic authors who took different paths toward chronicling a country beset by prejudice and at war with itself.

Review Quotes

Praise for Voices in the Dead House

Big Other Book Award Finalist
Foreword Reviews "Book of the Day" selection
Library Journal "Historical Fiction Titles To Share with Readers" selection
Kirkus Reviews "New Novels With a Literary Pedigree" selection
The Millions "Most Anticipated Books" selection

"A unique look at the Civil War. . . . Through his characters' struggles, Lock ably portrays the concerns of that day--prejudice, the strength of the Union, and America's position in the world--which still exist in this one." --Washington Independent Review of Books

"Gripping. . . . Distinctive. . . . A haunting novel that offers candid portraits of literary legends." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"A stunning historical novel that brings history and literature together to share a singular perspective on the Civil War." --Foreword Reviews

"A twin tale of two literary luminaries. . . . Lock's deep knowledge of the time period is evident throughout, his research impeccable, his prose iridescent." --Booklist

"Immersive. . . . Lock's uncanny gift for reproducing the literary voices of his narrators goes beyond mere pastiche. This insightful double portrait brings both Whitman and Alcott into sharp focus." --Publishers Weekly

"Lock captures the strong personalities of Whitman and Alcott without glossing over their flaws in this fascinating snapshot of history." --Library Journal

"Lock's lyrical prose encompasses themes ranging from American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny to racism." --Historical Novels Review

"A simply riveting read by Norman Lock--an author with a genuine flair for originality and the kind of narrative storytelling style that fully engages the reader from first page to last." --Midwest Book Review

Select Praise for Norman Lock's The American Novels Series

"Norman Lock has created a memorable portrait gallery of American subjects, in a succession of audaciously imagined, wonderfully original, and beautifully written novels unlike anything in our literature." --Joyce Carol Oates

"Shimmers with glorious language, fluid rhythms, and complex insights." --Jane Ciabattari, NPR

"Our national history and literature are Norman Lock's playground in his dazzling series, The American Novels. . . . [His] supple, elegantly plain-spoken prose captures the generosity of the American spirit in addition to its moral failures, and his passionate engagement with our literary heritage evinces pride in its unique character." --Wendy Smith, Washington Post

"This is fiction of a high caliber. . . on the cutting edge of history, providing us with a way to grapple with our evolving sense of the past, as we wonder what is next." --Carl Rollyson, New York Sun

On The Boy in His Winter

"[Lock] is one of the most interesting writers out there. This time, he re-imagines Huck Finn's journeys, transporting the iconic character deep into America's past--and future." --Reader's Digest

On American Meteor

"[Walt Whitman] hovers over [American Meteor], just as Mark Twain's spirit pervaded The Boy in His Winter. . . . Like all Mr. Lock's books, this is an ambitious work, where ideas crowd together on the page like desperate men on a battlefield." --Wall Street Journal

On The Port-Wine Stain

"Lock's novel engages not merely with [Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas Dent Mütter] but with decadent fin de siècle art and modernist literature that raised philosophical and moral questions about the metaphysical relations among art, science and human consciousness. The reader is just as spellbound by Lock's story as [his novel's narrator] is by Poe's. . . . Echoes of Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Freud's theory of the uncanny abound in this mesmerizingly twisted, richly layered homage to a pioneer of American Gothic fiction." --New York Times Book Review

On A Fugitive in Walden Woods

"A Fugitive in Walden Woods manages that special magic of making Thoreau's time in Walden Woods seem fresh and surprising and necessary right now. . . . This is a patient and perceptive novel, a pleasure to read even as it grapples with issues that affect the United States to this day." --Victor LaValle, author of Lone Women

On The Wreckage of Eden

"The lively passages of Emily [Dickinson]'s letters are so evocative of her poetry that it becomes easy to see why Robert finds her so captivating. The book also expands and deepens themes of moral hypocrisy around racism and slavery. . . . Lyrically written but unafraid of the ugliness of the time, Lock's thought-provoking series continues to impress." --Publishers Weekly

On Feast Day of the Cannibals

"Lock does not merely imitate 19th-century prose; he makes it his own, with verbal flourishes worthy of Melville." --Gay & Lesbian Review

On American Follies

"Ragtime in a fever dream. . . . When you mix 19th-century racists, feminists, misogynists, freaks, and a flim-flam man, the spectacle that results might bear resemblance to the contemporary United States." --Library Journal (starred review)

On Tooth of the Covenant

"Splendid. . . . Lock masters the interplay between nineteenth-century Hawthorne and his fictional surrogate, Isaac, as he travels through Puritan New England. The historical details are immersive and meticulous." --Foreword Reviews (starred review)

On The Ice Harp

"Lock deftly takes us into the polyphonic swirl of Emerson's mind at the end of his life, inviting us to meet the man anew even as the philosopher fights to stop forgetting himself. . . . [A] remarkably empathetic and deeply moral novel." --Matt Bell, author of Appleseed

On The Caricaturist

"Lock successfully mimics Crane's impressionistic style in his marvelous depictions of late 19th-century America." --Publishers Weekly

On Eden's Clock

"Lock's final title in his resplendent American Novels series . . . poignantly explores the nature of human connection. Rich in period detail and memorable characters, this is a fitting conclusion to the series." --Booklist

About the Author

Norman Lock is the award-winning author of novels, short fiction, and poetry, as well as stage and radio plays. He has won The Dactyl Foundation Literary Fiction Award, The Paris Review Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, and has been longlisted twice for the Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Prize. He has also received writing fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Aberdeen, New Jersey, where he is at work on the next books of The American Novels series.