Amherst
A Novel
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, “a wonderfully smooth, sinuous, enigmatic, and sexy tale of two love affairs” (Providence Journal) set in Amherst and illuminated by the presence of 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 between Emily Dickinson’s married brother, Austin, and a young, Amherst College faculty wife named Mabel Loomis Todd. Austin, twenty-four years Mabel’s senior and the college treasurer, lived next door to his reclusive sister, who allowed her home to be used 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 one that she’s writing about.
Using the poems of Emily Dickinson throughout, historically accurate and meticulously recreated from their voluminous letters and diaries, “William Nicholson deftly weaves Mabel’s story with Alice’s, shedding light on the timeless longing, lust, and loneliness of love” (People). Amherst is a provocative and remarkable novel: “The poetry and history go down easy, the lovers fall hard, and the tragic, treacherous terrain of romantic entanglement is well explored” (Elle).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nicholson (The Trial of True Love) offers up a cinema-ready exploration of love and lust in New England past and present. Present-day heroine Alice, an aspiring screenwriter, travels from England to Amherst, Mass., to conduct research for her screenplay about Emily Dickinson's affair. Alice's own story which includes a passionate affair with a much older man alternates with the story of her historical subjects: Emily Dickinson's brother, Austin, and his younger lover, Mabel, the married wife of an Amherst College professor. Their story suggests that Emily, who permitted the couple to liaise in her house, was herself obsessed with Mabel, who eventually championed the poet's work after Emily's death. The historical segments in many ways more vivid and lively than the somewhat melodramatic contemporary ones are well researched, although passages from the subjects' letters and diaries are injected awkwardly into the text. Both Austin and Mabel are complicated characters, and though there's nice balance between the dual narratives, one senses that Nicholson struggled with the dilemma of how to impose a fictional story onto real-life events.
Customer Reviews
2.5 stars – rounded
2.5 stars – rounded
Today I bring you another dual-timeline story, more focused on romance than history in Amherst, a release from William Nicholson. Utilizing the work of Emily Dickenson as the common tie in, this story utilizes the true events of an affair had by Austin Dickenson, brother of Emily in the past, and the current story of Alice Dickenson, an Englishwoman researching a screenplay and a married professor.
Throughout the story, the presence of Emily Dickenson is felt, sometimes portraying her as a voyeur, quoting her poetry, and using conversations with and about her to bring her alive.
What emerged is a bit of a mess: the two stories are told in alternating chapters, as we follow Austin’s deepening affections for Mabel and the scandals, and the rather predictable affair between Alice and her host Nick. Neither story really rang true for me – it was hard to overlook the predictability of Alice’s affair, as if she was reliving the story she was researching.
The writing was slow to develop, and while I was never quite “hooked” on characters or the story, by far the more interesting story was that of Mabel and Austin, and the forces that are working to bring them together and tear them apart. With a bit of what I have come to find as “directed description and storytelling’ that is common in screenwriters and playwrights, the ability to use my own experience and imagination to flush out a visual reference was often constrained and did not allow the read to go as smoothly as I would have hoped.
A decidedly uneven story with the historical being far more believable and enjoyable than the present, this book was in need of more balance and character development in the present with a less predictable chain of events for Alice.
I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via Edelweiss for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.