Happy Birthday, Emily

 by Sheila Connolly

Today would have been Emily Dickinson's 180th birthday. I hadn't realized that the release of my most recent book, A Killer Crop, would coincide so neatly—but in case you don't know it, writers have little control over when their books come out. That's up to the publisher's schedule. So maybe this timing is a bit of serendipity, because Emily is a pivotal figure in my story. No, it's not a historical novel—it's very much contemporary. And so, apparently, is Emily Dickinson.

Last month I wrote here that I had been invited to appear as part of a panel at the Boston Public Library. That is one impressive place, in both architecture and status, and I was honored to be invited. I will admit I wondered if people would actually attend such an event on a chilly winter evening, especially since the lighting of the Christmas tree on the Boston Common was taking place at the same time, but a nice group did come (I'll bet we were the warmer choice).

So there we were, four poets, a college professor, and me, talking about Emily Dickinson. What did we find to talk about?

I was happily surprised by how cohesive the whole was. One theme, unscripted, was "looking inward, looking outward." The mythology holds that Emily Dickinson led a reclusive life. There are anecdotes about her reluctance to see people outside of her family, at least in the later years of her life. But she had seen more of the wider world—she had attended school for a year in South Hadley, and with her family she had traveled to Washington DC and Philadelphia. And she carried on an active correspondence with a wide range of people. She was by no means isolated.

Whatever the facts of her life, we know her best from the poems she left—and there were many. After her death there were some bitter arguments over what Emily had written—and Emily herself had asked that her sister Lavinia destroy her letters, which Lavinia did. For many years her poems (about which she left no instructions for Lavinia) did not see publication because of a bitter feud between Lavinia and her brother's mistress. Even when they were finally published, several people had engaged in some serious editing—passing judgment on the late poet.

But still Emily's voice comes through. She listened to herself, and herself alone, flouting the conventions of contemporary poetry—much of which has disappeared from view.

In doing research for A Killer Crop, and in the discussion at the library, I realized that there are many filters through which individuals and groups view Emily Dickinson: psychological (was she agoraphobic? Mentally ill?), physiological (did she suffer from epilepsy? Migraines? Was her handwriting so idiosyncratic, bearing little resemblance to the formal script that girls of her time and class would have been taught, because she had poor eyesight?), feminist, social, stylistic, sexual (was she a lesbian? Was she an overheated spinster penning near-erotic lines to unattainable and oblivious men?). Is any one of these a crucial factor in her poetry?

What is clear is that the body of work she left still resonates with readers. Why was our motley crew gathered in a room at the BPL to discuss her, more than a century after her death, and why did people come to listen and ask questions? Why does she continue to fascinate generation after generation? Why did her work stand above the endless lines of Victorian poetry that padded many newspapers of the day, and outlive them all?

If Emily was inward-looking, some of her peers were the opposite. Consider the chaotic literary ferment going on in Concord at the same time period. Picture if you will Ralph Waldo Emerson holding forth at the dinner table, where his guests included Louisa May Alcott (pining over Ralph), Henry David Thoreau (who strolled the short distance from Walden Pond), and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Imagine the conversations they may have shared! Then contrast that with the quiet of Emily's narrow, carefully constructed world across the state in Amherst. Both sides produced works that outlived them and are still widely read today.

Whether the fruit of inward reflection or outward observation, poetry still has the power to bring us together and to move us. That's why we still celebrate the life of Emily Dickinson.

New release!

A Killer Crop, the fourth book in the Orchard Series (Berkley Prime Crime) by Sheila Connolly is released today!

When Meg Corey's mother arrives unannounced in Granford, Massachusett , Meg's sure it's not just to pay a surprise visit to the apple of her eye. The timing is terrible–it's harvest season and Meg is understaffed in the orchard. Plus Elizabeth Corey is clearly hiding the real purpose of her trip from her daughter.

After an English professor from Amherst–and an old friend of her mother–is found dead on the floor of a cider house, Elizabeth is interrogated by the police, and then grilled by her daughter. She is indeed keeping a secret–but could Meg's own mother really have committed murder? One thing is clear: someone decided to teach the professor a lesson. And the key to unlocking the mystery may lie with a poet who could not stop for Death . . .

Cousin Emily

by Sheila Connolly
Once upon a time, long, long ago, I aspired to be an academic—specifically, a medieval art historian. I even have two degrees in art history, and one forgotten publication, “The Cloister Sculpture of Saint-Aubin in Angers” (Gesta, 1979). (Good grief: Google can still find it!)
I’ve been asked to participate in a panel on Emily Dickinson at the Boston Public Library next month. The invitation came from the Poet Laureate of Boston, Sam Cornish—not because of my widespread literary renown nor for my studious insights into the poet, but because he and my daughter both work at the same bookstore. He’s a delightful man, and he’s responsible for promoting poetry through events in the city of Boston. 

I remember the strictures about writing a scholarly article—the formatting for footnotes, the carefully-phrased statements (“several authors have suggested that it is possible that something may have contributed…”). But it’s been quite a while since I dabbled my toes in academia, and I’m a bit intimidated: the list includes poets, professors—and me, a mystery writer.

But there's another reason why I, a non-academic, am on this panel: I’ve written a contemporary mystery in which Emily Dickinson plays a significant role: A Killer Crop, the fourth book in my Orchard Mystery series. The series is set in western Massachusetts, close to Amherst, and it is all but impossible to spend any time in that area without tripping over Emily. Yes, I’ve toured her house more than once, and I’ve even visited her grave (to ask her permission? Or forgiveness?).

But I’m not writing about her poetry, I’m writing about connections. We all have probably heard the stories about Dickinson’s reclusiveness, her avoidance of contact with people. Those stories may be exaggerated, and they focus on the later part of her life. In her earlier years Emily did in fact travel and visit people. And there were many, many Dickinsons who lived near Amherst, and most were related somehow. That’s what my story taps into: Dickinson genealogy.

While I don’t pretend to have specific information on who Emily may have visited, I feel safe in guessing that there were local family connections that may have played a part in her life. The protagonist in my series finds herself in an unfamiliar community where she knows no one, and then she finds her first body. Since she’s the stranger, the outsider, local law enforcement places her at the top of the suspect list—and it’s a short list. She has to fight to clear her name, and she does find friends and supporters along the way. And she begins the process of “belonging”—becoming part of the local community.

In our current society, families are scattered across the country; communication takes place mainly through electronic media. We tend to forget that in the 19th century, movement was far more restricted and most relationships were limited to the distance of a horse-and-carriage ride. The very definitions of “family” and “friends” were different then. Emily Dickinson’s concept of relationships would have been very different, and certainly she would have placed more value on the written word than we do now.
What she could not have known was how treasured her words would be, well over a century later.

P.S.  I'm Emily's sixth cousin five times removed.