A LOADED GUN. It’s not necessarily a phrase you expect from Emily Dickinson. Or is it? Well, if you know about her sister, her sister-in-law, and the woman down the street, you might think differently, especially after reading the new book that aptly uses the firearms phrase in the title. Kaboom: What a family. Or didn’t you know?
Lives Like Loaded Guns, is the breathtaking title of the astonishing book by Lyndall Gordon. The book is getting a lot of press since in it the author argues that Emily Dickinson was epileptic, which is interesting, and possible, but in no way is the most interesting nor possible aspect of this dynamic book, and while a fine argument is made for the medical condition that may have ruled the poet’s life, it’s the context of the family dynamic—the poet living in the Homestead with her sister, while their brother, Austin, is conducting a long, torrid affair in the sisters’ downstairs parlor with his wife and children literally next door—that claims the top prize of context here. Because in family, as in art, everything is context.
This is the nonfiction book of the summer for the sisterhood. I literally could not put it down, and started again from the beginning when I got to the end.
Why? Because you never knew how families shape art until you read it, and you will be forever changed after you do.
Just out from Viking. Get one, and get ready to feel the loaded guns of the Dickinsons.
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