The Lovers of Amherst by William Nicholson, book review: Parallel passion and poetry in New England, then and now

The afterlife of the secretive recluse still ripples across academic circles and the popular imagination, but it is surprising nonetheless to learn that it was only as recently as 1984 that details about the illicit love affair between Emily Dickinson’s brother and their Amherst neighbour was first brought to public attention in Polly Longsworth’s sympathetic study, Austin and Mabel. More recently, Lyndall Gordon’s 2010 revisionist biography, Lives Like Loaded Guns, explored the facts in exhaustive detail.

But fiction has a truthful purpose, too. William Nicholson’s scrupulously researched story throws fresh light on the extraordinary love affair between Austin Dickinson, 55, and 24-year-old Mabel Todd. We cannot know for sure what they shared in the privacy of Emily Dickinson’s dining room, where they often met, or what she saw and heard, or the effect on her poetry. By interspersing his narrative with snippets of extant correspondence, diary entries, and secret notes, drawn, mostly, from Longsworth and his own research in the Sterling Memorial Archives at Yale, alongside some of Emily Dickinson’s passionate poems, Nicholson creates a solid historical base from which he imaginatively recreates the time period and personalities involved. Moreover, the physical act of researching “the very notes they sent each other with such secrecy” is an integral part of the story, adding an air of factual realism from which he speculates as plausibly as a biographer.

Mabel Loomis Todd (1856-1932) arrived in Amherst in 1881 with her husband, David, the new director of Amherst College Observatory. Entering into Amherst society, she first struck up a friendship with Susan, Austin’s wife, and then entertained the Dickinson household next door. By then, the “Homestead” was occupied by Austin’s sisters, Emily and Lavinia (Vinnie), and their invalid mother. Although Mabel never met Emily (she’d listen at the top of the stairs while she played piano and sang), they communicated through notes and gifts.

Running parallel to the story of Austin and Mabel is the modern-day story of Alice Dickinson (no relation) who arrives in New England to undertake background research for her screenplay about their affair. Through her lover-turned-friend, Jack Broad, Alice gets in touch with Nick Crocker, a visiting professor (with a reputation), and she accepts his offer of temporary accommodation. Alice, Jack, and Nick pull us back to previous books in Nicholson’s interconnected series: in The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life (2009) Nick has an affair with Laura Kinross (Broad), while in All the Hopeful Lovers (2010) Laura’s son, Jack, is put together with Alice through Facebook in much the same way that his response to her Facebook request for information about Emily Dickinson sends her to Nick’s door.

Rowing in Eden –

Ah, the sea!

Might I but moor tonight

In thee!

As she becomes caught up in her own affair, Alice reflects on romantic love and passion, and ponders the “I” in Dickinson’s poems, and the poet’s relationship to Mabel. “Something true and powerful is at work here. What if it’s something bigger than love? What is there that’s bigger than love?” In New England for just two weeks, her attachment to Nick is perhaps too quickly established, but it’s a necessary part of the storyline.

Emily Dickinson intrudes into the narrative: “Stand at the top of the stairs. Look down into the dark hallway below. She’s there with him, the one he loves, the one I need. A door opens. The rustle of a dress as a half-glimpsed woman passes quickly down the passage, and out of the back door.”

While fictional stage directions are a reminder of the writer of Shadowlands lurking in the background, something deeper is afoot. Alice’s problem (aside from tackling her first screenplay) is how to find a way into a story she doesn’t fully understand. With Nick, she discusses the process of storytelling; how to frame her fiction, and whether she needs to care about Mabel. The Lovers of Amherst is a rich writers’ resource.

Without Mabel Todd, we may never have known the extent of Dickinson’s creativity. It was Mabel who undertook the task of preserving the letters and poems that survive, bringing order to the 1,800 poems, and pushing forward to publication. Nicholson’s story continues on after the deaths of Emily and Austin to explore the motivations behind Mabel’s efforts. His greatest achievement, though, in The Lovers of Amherst, is to compel us to approach Emily Dickinson’s poetry with fresh eyes.

This is my letter to the World

That never wrote to Me –

The simple News that Nature told –

With tender Majesty –

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Paperback reviews: Beneath the Heart of the Sea, Malice, White Beech, The Rise of Islamic State, The Poetry of Sex

Owen Chase was first mate on the Essex, a Nantucket whaling ship that was sunk by an enraged sperm whale in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1820. Cast adrift in tiny lifeboats, Chase and his fellow survivors considered their options. To the west lay the Marquesas Islands, which they feared were inhabited by cannibal tribes; to the east, much farther away, the coast of Chile. The sailors chose the latter, but headwinds blew them off course and they spent months at sea with little food or water. In a tragic irony, they were forced to resort to cannibalism themselves before they were rescued by a passing American vessel.

Chase wrote about his harrowing experiences in this memoir, first published in 1821. It has been reissued to tie in with Ron Howard’s film version, out later this year; both the book and the movie are being marketed as “the true story that inspired Moby-Dick”. Chase was, in fact, only one among many sources for Herman Melville’s great novel (although, to be fair, a big-screen adaptation of, say, Thomas Beale’s The Natural History of the Sperm Whale would probably have struggled to get the Hollywood green light).

Melville charitably called Chase’s book a “plain and faithful narrative,” but it’s rather awkwardly written; you can find more dramatic renditions of the Essex story in Charles Olson’s Call Me Ishmael (1947) and Nathaniel Philbrick’s National Book Award-winning In the Heart of the Sea (2000) – the latter draws on other survivors’ accounts and forms the basis of Howard’s film. Nevertheless, Chase’s original is worth reading for the small, poignant details that reveal the depths of the hunger that led him to transgress that terrible taboo: when flying fish land in the bottom of Chase’s boat, the sailors gobble them down raw, “scales, wings and all”.

***

Malice by Keigo Higashino (trs by Alexander o Smith) (Abacus £8.99)

It may seem strange from the country that gave us Hello Kitty, but cats often get a raw deal in Japanese literature. In the work of Yukio Mishima and Haruki Murakami, moggie-murder is a recurring trope – it’s often used as shorthand to suggest a character’s criminal psychosis.

Cat-killing is also a major plot device in this superb mystery-thriller from the Japanese novelist Keigo Higashino. The book centres on the murder of a famous writer, Hidaka– a crime that may or may not have something to do with his tendency to poison the neighbourhood kittens. The chief suspect is another writer, Nonoguchi, whose unreliable testimony forms the bulk of the narrative; we also hear from Kaga, the workaholic detective assigned to the case.

To reveal any more would be to risk spoiling this novel’s revelatory pleasures. Suffice it to say that the story has more twists and turns than the Tokyo metro – and proves that Higashino is a master of the form.

****

White Beech by Germaine Greer (Bloomsbury £9.99)

In 2001, Germaine Greer bought a run-down dairy farm in Queensland. This memoir tells the story of how she teamed up with her botanist sister to turn the land into a forest reserve, a haven for birds and beasts and rare white beech trees. Greer’s writing about nature is truly wonderful: a bird’s “fanned brick-red tail is edged with a white so bright it seems to leave tracks in the sunlit air”; “emus loped beside me … my ears tuned to the electric sizzle of the finches’ song”. Indeed, to fulfil her stated goal of “conveying the deep joy that rebuilding wild nature can bring” Greer might have given freer rein to this poetic impulse, and submitted the more academic parts of the book to a bit of pruning.

****

The Rise of Islamic State by Patrick Cockburn (Verso £9.99)

Veteran Independent on Sunday journalist Patrick Cockburn is one of our foremost experts on the Middle East, and this book, which addresses the rise of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis), is essential reading. Cockburn describes how the militant jihadi group has taken advantage of the weakness of the Iraqi government and the Syrian civil war to win a huge swathe of territory. Cockburn examines and analyses very recent Isis assaults and also takes a step back to explore how these events reflect wider trends, including the conflict between Sunni and Shi’a, and the resurgent Cold War between the US and Russia. Cockburn’s conclusion is chastening: “A new and terrifying state has been born that will not easily disappear.”

*****

The Poetry of Sex, edited by Sophie Hannah (Penguin £9.99)

Whether you’re loved up after Valentine’s Day, or sick of the whole shebang, this collection of poetry about sex will have something for you. Sophie Hannah’s excellent selection ranges over centuries, from Ovid to Carol Ann Duffy. The tone moves from the ecstatically sensual (Michelle McGrane’s “If You Are Lucky”: “the hot-breathed arrival of desire/the frenzied coupling/as you opened soundlessly/and the world flooded into you”) to the playful (E E Cummings’s “May I Feel”: “may i touch said he/how much said she/ a lot said he/why not said she”). You also get no fewer than two lust-drenched poems about the James Bond actor Daniel Craig for your money, if he’s your thing.

****

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Poems and National Poetry Day: news and teaching resources round up

Bring poems to life on National Poetry Day using our selection of news stories and teaching resources. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

Poetry has made the headlines this week, with the death of Ghana's most famous poet Kofi Awoonor in the Kenyan siege followed by Michael Gove's call for pupils to give up sexting in favour of sending each other love poems.

As it's National Poetry Day on Thursday 3 October, marked this year with a water theme, we have pulled together news, teaching resources, multimedia and recommended websites to help your make your celebrations inspiring.

Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor among Westgate mall victims
One of Ghana's most famous poets has been killed in the Nairobi shopping centre attack, after travelling to Kenya for a literary festival. Find out more about this incredible poet in his obituary http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/23/kofi-awoonor.

George the poet 'Go Home' – video
Performance artist George the Poet http://georgethepoet.com/ takes on the government's campaign against illegal immigrants. Thought-provoking video to play in class.

Top 10 most requested poems
Poetry Please, the world's longest-running radio poetry show, reveals its 10 most requested poems. Great reading for your students, plus raises interesting questions of the purpose of poetry. Why do we continue to want to hear poems written by long-dead poets?

To Autumn – poem of the week
One of the most widely published of John Keats' poems, To Autumn is laden with meaning – and is the Guardian's poem of the week. Read the poem and commentary here, great stimulus for your students' own autumn-themed poetry.

Typhoons in the news
The theme of this year's Poetry Day is water, so your students may want to do their own news-based research on the impact of water on people's lives, as super typhoon Usagi hits the western Pacific.

Romantic rhymes to Michael Gove – share your sentiments
As Michael Gove tells young people to scrap sexts for love poems, we ask teachers to tweet us their verses for the education secretary. Share your verses with us in the comments thread.

Mermaid's Lament poster
Gorgeous watery world poster to celebrate National Poetry Day inspired by Mermaid's Lament by Rachel Rooney.

Squirting Rainbows by Shirley Hughes
A classic poem by the legend that is Shirley Hughes, beautifully presented for classroom display for National Poetry Day 2013.

Born of Water key stage 3 lesson plan
This reading and writing activity by Mandy Coe is based on poems by Rachel Rooney and Carl Sandburg.

Splashing out with poetry in reception
Based on poems by James Coe, this is a reading and performance activity for early years.

Jelly fish cut out
Great idea for responding to this year's National Poetry Day watery theme for early years and primary students.

Into the Deep
Flotsam, Jetsam and the Deeps are explored in this stirring lesson plan aimed at key stage 4 based on Michael Symmons Roberts' poem.

The Whale Watcher
The Scottish Poetry Library http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk has created a wonderful set of resources in partnership with Scottish Water, including this one on Kathleen Jamie's Whale Watcher.

Cut up and shuffle
This imaginative idea to encourage close-reading and collaboration can be adapted for ages 7 to 16.

Think of a Flood
Notes and activity-based ideas to explore Jackie Kay's poem Think of a Flood, itself an English version of a Gaelic poem by Myles Campbell, Rudan a nì uisge, which can be adapted for all ages.

Rain
Notes and ideas for teaching Don Paterson's poem Rain.

National Poetry Day animation
Leo Crane's watery-themed animation is absolutely beautiful and will only take up 30 seconds of your day. Unmissable viewing.

Scottish Poetry Library
This site aims to bring people and poetry together and has an engrossing learning section with great downloadables.

Poetry Society's Poetry Class
Fantastically inspiring resources and ideas here. The society also runs a poetry cafe in London for those craving old-school contact plus open mic sessions.

National Poetry Day website
Lots of help and ideas here here for National Poetry Day and beyond.

Apples and Snakes
Poetry site with a bite – spoken word, poetry slams and lots of collaboration to engage students.

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