List Books As Amherst
ISBN: | 1476740402 (ISBN13: 9781476740409) |
Edition Language: | English |

William Nicholson
Hardcover | Pages: 289 pages Rating: 3.02 | 729 Users | 166 Reviews
Be Specific About Regarding Books Amherst
Title | : | Amherst |
Author | : | William Nicholson |
Book Format | : | Hardcover |
Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 289 pages |
Published | : | February 10th 2015 by Simon Schuster |
Categories | : | Historical. Historical Fiction. Fiction. Romance. Poetry |
Relation Concering Books Amherst
From an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and the author of Motherland, a novel about two love affairs set in Amherst—one in the present, one in the past, and both presided over by Emily Dickinson.Alice Dickinson, a young advertising executive in London, decides to take time off work to research her idea for a screenplay: the true story of the scandalous, adulterous love affair that took place between a young, Amherst college faculty wife, Mabel Loomis Todd, and the college’s treasurer, Austin Dickinson, in the 1880s. Austin, twenty-four years Mabel’s senior and married, was the brother of the reclusive poet Emily Dickinson, whose house provided the setting for Austin and Mabel’s trysts.
Alice travels to Amherst, staying in the house of Nick Crocker, a married English academic in his fifties. As Alice researches Austin and Mabel’s story and Emily’s role in their affair, she embarks on her own affair with Nick, an affair that, of course, they both know echoes the affair that she’s writing about in her screenplay.
Interspersed with Alice’s complicated love story is the story of Austin and Mabel, historically accurate and meticulously recreated from their voluminous letters and diaries. Using the poems of Emily Dickinson throughout, Amherst is an exploration of the nature of passionate love, its delusions, and its glories. This novel is playful and scholarly, sexy and smart, and reminds us that the games we play when we fall in love have not changed that much over the years.
Rating Regarding Books Amherst
Ratings: 3.02 From 729 Users | 166 ReviewsDiscuss Regarding Books Amherst
This was just awful. Would-be British screenwriter Alice Dickenson (no relation) visits Amherst to research her project: the affair of Austin Dickenson, poet Emily's married brother, with Mabel Loomis Todd, a much younger married woman. She is convinced not only that this was a true passion but that much of the sexual action took place in Emily and Lavinia's house with the sisters getting hot and bothered listening outside the parlor door. And let's not forget that the affair had the approval ofI listened to this audio book. I loved the British vs American accents. It helped move the book along. I'm not sure I loved any of the characters but I didn't really dislike them either. Kind of a lukewarm review huh?
A young woman from England, Alice Dickinson, is on leave from her job to visit Amherst for a few weeks to research her idea to turn the love affair between Emily Dickinson's brother Austin and a married woman, Mabel Loomis Todd, into a screenplay. It isn't clear whether she actually has any talent or prior success in this line of work. Alice is invited by Nick, ~30 years older than her and also a Dickinson scholar at the local university, to stay at his home while she conducts her research. Nick

I so badly wanted to like this but I just couldn't stay with it. I liked the history of David and Mabel Todd and Austin Dickinson but the parallel love story of Alice and Nick just wasn't grabbing me. Maybe it was because Mr. Womanizer Nick decided he could fall in love after all and Maybe I just didn't like his character, but this just wasn't for me.
This novel presents a thought-provoking pairing of two stories: one of a young Englishwoman coming to America to research a screenplay on Emily Dickinson, and the other the story of Dickinson herself--or, more to the point, of her brother Austin and his extramarital relationship with Mabel Todd, the woman who eventually brought Dickinson's poems to the world. To call the two stories 'love' stories seems inadequate, because Nicholson is writing about love here in its largest sense--not just
The lovers in question are the married middle aged brother of the poet, Emily Dickinson and the young wife of an academic, recently come to live in Amherst, New England. This adulterous relationship which occurs in the 1880s is particularly unconventional. It has the blessing of Emily who we do not see but is present throughout much of the book where she is referred to as The Myth.Partly set in the time of the principal historical characters 1880s and then 120 years or so later when a young
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