"Lives Like Loaded Guns ...reads like a fabulous detective story, replete with hidden treasure, diabolical adversaries and a curse from one generation to the next...Gordon is fair to all...revealing their strengths and liabilities, and she corrects some of the inconsistencies of earlier biographies..."Abyss has no biographer," Dickinson warned future readers. But Gordon is not frightened of the pits and traps and the thousand masks that Emily wears. She takes us into undiscovered territory." The Washington Post The Chicago Tribune The Boston Globe Lives Like Loaded Guns is so lurid, so fraught with forbidden passions, that readers may be disappointed to find that no actual gun goes off in this feverish account of the Dickinson family "feuds." ... Gordon's suggestion that Dickinson may have been epileptic has already inspired debate among scholars...A vivid account." The New York Times Book Review Lives Like Loaded Guns , she entertains fresh interpretations of the poet's life...Viewing the poet through the lens of 19th-century spin doctors is fresh and provocative." USA Today The Economist The Nation The Seattle Times Lives Like Loaded Guns is a remarkable achievement that deconstructs the image of Dickinson so entrenched in literary history. Gordon, a gifted storyteller, charts the ugly family dramas not to exploit them, but to prove how truly damaging they were to the poet's legacy . . . This fascinating biography will inspire readers to return to Dickinson's vastly rich poems and letters - and it's her work for which she should be remembered, after all." Newsday The Washington Times Lives Like Loaded Guns reads like page-turning fiction, but is grounded in Gordon's masterful use of historical archives. It utterly revises our notion of dour 19th century New Englanders, turning them into flesh and blood people driven by the same urges as us. Gordon is one of the best biographers writing today, and this volume a superlative example of how the genre can both entertain and instruct." Sacramento Book Review Lives Like Loaded Guns is a fascinating book on so many different levels. If you thought you knew the whole story of Emily Dickinson, you probably don't. And if you don't, you really should. In all its twists and turns through generations spanning an American century, it remains an explosive story." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds will keep Dickinson devotees busy for decades... Gordon sets Emily Dickinson's life and legacy in the context of an adulterous affair that split her family — and offers a splendidly speculative challenge to portraits of the poet as a withdrawn eccentric." Minneapolis Star Tribune Slate Magazine Lives Like Loaded Guns , is a tour de force. Meticulously researched and keenly argued, it transforms the conventional image of Dickinson-and reveals how that image came to be." Bookpage (Top Pick) The Barnes & Noble Review , reprinted in Salon.com
Lives Like Loaded Guns , Lyndall Gordon's book about Emily Dickinson and the fury that surrounded the publication of her poems, reads like a fabulous detective story, replete with hidden treasure, diabolical adversaries and a curse from one generation to the next.
This biography is informed by two revelations: first, a bombshell that is likely to be debated as long as there are inquiring readers of Emily Dickinson; and second, the effect of a family love affair on the poet's long and complex publishing history. When Dickinson writes “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” and punctuates her work in a spasmodic style, Gordon maintains we are privy to the neuronal misfiring of epilepsy. Gordon unearths compelling evidence: the glycerine Dickinson was prescribed, then a common treatment for epilepsy; her photosensitivity; and a family history of epilepsy. The stigma-packed condition, says Gordon, is at least one source of Dickinson's celebrated isolation. Gordon, biographer of Virginia Woolf and Mary Wollstonecraft, also recounts the fallout from the affair between the poet's straitlaced, married brother, Austin, and the far younger, also married Mabel Loomis Todd. In a literary land grab, descendants of the families of Dickinson and Todd (who edited many of Emily's papers) squared off in a fight to control the poet's work and myth. Although deciphering Emily Dickinson's mysterious personality is like trying to catch a ghost, this startling biography explains quite a lot. 16 pages of b&w photos; 2 maps. (June 14)
Acclaimed biographer Gordon's (www.lyndallgordon.net) last title was the New York Times Notable Book Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft (2005). Here, she draws on letters, diaries, and legal documents to reveal two previously unexplored impacts on the life of poet Emily Dickinson: one involving her brother's scandalous affair with a married woman; the other, her own epilepsy. This audio production opens with a recitation of characters—a useful reference tool in print, though not so much in this format. Indeed, it is occasionally difficult to differentiate among the myriad characters, all voiced by veteran narrator Wanda McCaddon, who struggles to add drama to the small bits of assembled quotes. While the print edition contains significant bibliographic citations and photos, the audiobook does not. Of interest as an audio only to Dickinson enthusiasts. [The Viking hc received a starred review, LJ 7/10.—Ed.]—Johannah Genett, Hennepin Cty. Libs., Minneapolis
Lyndall Gordon expands the conventional profile of poet Emily Dickinson as a delicate, reclusive spinster and introduces a more lively, passionate, and worldly woman. Wanda McCaddon uses her subtle British accent and crisp delivery to quickly establish this persona. She expertly captures Dickinson's acerbic wit from notes left to family and friends and successfully delivers the spiritual and vulnerable side often found in her poems. Although it includes some poetic analysis, this book focuses on Dickinson's personal life, which, as the title suggests, involved a surprising amount of controversy and drama. Gordon and McCaddon present a treat for those who enjoy Dickinson’s poems as well as for those who simply enjoy a good story well told. M.O.B. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
SEPTEMBER 2010 - AudioFile
