"We think we know Emily Dickinson: the Belle of Amherst, virginal, reclusive, and possibly mad. But in A Loaded Gun, Jerome Charyn introduces us to a different Emily Dickinson: fierce, brilliant, and sexually charged"--Back cover.
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I enjoyed this biography, but I think I enjoyed arguing with it more. I couldn't put it down, and at times I couldn't get it out of my head. But it was also infuriating, exasperating, intoxicating in the way that most unhealthy things are. The excerpts about Carlo and Emily Norcross were quite worth the read. The rest I took with the many grains of salt required to digest opinions presented as fact without much in the way of convincing argument or significant supporting evidence. The book's strengths are in its sharp prose and its curious approach to biography—which is rambling and thematic, rather than strictly chronological, and which I actually found to be an engaging narrative to trace. (Even if the rather lengthy aside on Joseph Cornell felt wholly unnecessary.) But, while the author's clear passion(s) for the subject make for a galloping pace, this also gives the biography an almost obsessive (possessive?) quality. I wonder if Charyn might have been attempting to create an Emily RepliLuxe of his own from the pages of his research.
(Edited with more to say on January 7, 2023)
