Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds by Lyndall Gordon

Aug 20, 2011 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, nonfiction

I don't believe I need to read any more books about Emily Dickinson. With this and White Heat, I'm satiated. Time to go back to the poems...

Lyndall Gordon seems to be a trustworthy guide through the Dickinson thicket of mythology and legend...She focuses on the family and the rifts(s) that ensued with brother Austin's fourteen year affair with Mabel Loomis Todd (he was married to her Dickinson's girlhood friend Susan Gilbert). She also surmises that Dickinson suffered from epilepsy, which given...more

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Dec 23, 2012 Miles rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a great, great book. I suggest stopping what you are doing now and reading it instead.

I had not the slightest interest in Emily Dickinson until a few years ago, around the age of 50, or perhaps, this year at the age of 53. Until then I read her, and shrugged. Then, suddenly, I was ready, and she began to speak to me. Go figure.

It was on NPR that I heard Lyndall Gordon's thesis that Dickinson may have had epilepsy. As the father of a young man with epilepsy I found the evidence of Dickins...more This is a great, great book. I suggest stopping what you are doing now and reading it instead.

I had not the slightest interest in Emily Dickinson until a few years ago, around the age of 50, or perhaps, this year at the age of 53. Until then I read her, and shrugged. Then, suddenly, I was ready, and she began to speak to me. Go figure.

It was on NPR that I heard Lyndall Gordon's thesis that Dickinson may have had epilepsy. As the father of a young man with epilepsy I found the evidence of Dickinson's epilepsy to be strikingly plausible. Gordon acknowledges that the case cannot be proven, but evidence certainly extends beyond poetry. There are medicines purchased (glycerin, a 19th century epilepsy treatment) and specialists visited (in faraway Boston, by a woman who preferred not to venture abroad.) There is the fact of several other family members with the condition. There is the choice of non-marriage and seclusion, consistent with the sense of shame that 19th century society associated with the loss of control. There is also, allusively and suggestively, when framed by this external evidence, her poetry itself. I cannot do the epilepsy argument full justice, but as one who knows epilepsy, trust me when I say there is a ring of truth here. It's not impossible, not by a long shot.

The epilepsy discussion is however only one chapter among many, and hardly the author's most central argument. Gordon places Dickinson in her full historical and social context to better illuminate the "volcanic" dynamics of her family, including her brother Austin's affair with Mabel Todd, her "sister" (in law) Susan's fears of marriage to Austin and Emily's passionate devotion to her, and the acid personalities of the Dickinson clan. Gordon uses the subsequent century long feud between the two factions of the family and their descendants to help us understand, retrospectively, who the people who surrounded the poet were. She uses their conflicts as a way of chipping away at the falsehoods and myths that, until very recently, have dominated interpretations of Emily Dickinson's life, and poetry.

One facet among many that Gordon describes is Emily's sexuality or passion. We learn that she had a passionate physical (if "unconsummated", we presume) relationship with a man (Judge Lord) in later life. (Did you know that? I did not.) We learn that the family lived with the reality of her brother Austin's affair with Mabel Todd, a truth that could never be spoken out loud. And we witness her own expressions of passion for various women which, in typical 19th century fashion, leave open the question of physicality. When combined with the possibility of epilepsy ( a shameful force that took over the body and caused it to shake and lose control, possibly associated with "hysteria" or "masturbation" in the 19th century mind) a portrait emerges not of an ethereal recluse afraid to be in the physical world, but of a woman with body awareness and body experience, an embodied mind.

Gordon's book is a revisionist history, attacking what appears to be the predominant view of the Todd camp, in which Austin Dickinson's wife Susan is made out to be a villain. Gordon makes a persuasive case "against" Mabel Todd and "in favor" of Sue Dickinson, but the book is more than that - in illuminating Todd's self-aggrandizing power play to be the true inheritor of Emily Dickinson's legacy, she describes a conniver and a climber and a liar, yes, but also a woman who is fascinating in her own right.

As the first Dickinson biography that I've ever read, I can't tell you whether this effort to set the record straight has got it right. I can only say that I found it enormously persuasive, meticulously scholarly, and deeply in touch with Emily Dickinson. This "in touchness" stems from the author's use of the surround to comprehend the focus. Dickinson is but half real if we imagine her only through her writings and poems. But the act of examining every life around her, every facet of her world that can still be known, from economics, to law, to sex, to social relationships, and every conflict that flowed forward through history, creates an astonishing clarity about who she, the hidden poet, really was.

I am reminded of the empty corpse forms of Pompeii, spaces in the volcanic ash, whose reality was a negative space, that had to be filled with plaster to be revealed. Emily Dickinson is all but vanished in a biographical sense - only the bones of her poetry and letters remain - but when the shape of everything that touched her is understood, the space that she occupied, the shape of her form, is wonderfully illuminated.

I recommend this book as an act of scholarly conjuring and a gripping literary detective story.
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Nov 13, 2012 Candice rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

A fascinating read about one of the most enigmatic poets of American history. So much speculation has been written on Emily Dickinson, it was refreshing to read something that felt to bring a less prejudiced or biased approach to what was a very private and remarkable woman. Most of the facts around Emily's life are brought out in letters and stories of the people in her life. Gordon suggests a few theories, ones I hadn't heard before, about Emily's reclusive nature, but always steps back to rem...more

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Jul 12, 2012 Jee Koh rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a biography of Emily Dickinson and a book about who gets to say who she was after her death. On the Life, Gordon is at pains to dispel the legend of a retiring and reticent poet, an image so at odds with the poetry. Gordon shows that Dickinson used her correspondence as so many "lassoes" to grapple kindred spirits to her. A chapter is devoted to her love affair with Lord Judge, to whom Emily wrote expressively, even passionately, of her feelings. Regarding her brother Austin's adulterous...more

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Jun 23, 2012 Anne Tommaso rated it 2 of 5 stars

Two stars is really my fault. I was looking for a book about Emily Dickinson. Instead this is the messy story of her family in her lifetime and far beyond. According to Gordon, the events in the Dickinson/Todd saga don't seem come from love or passion but more from jealousy and what becomes a desire to possess the right to edit and publish Emily Dickinson's work. What began as a passionate affair (AD+MT) seems quickly overshadowed and sullied by petty jealousies over land and rights as the write...more

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Feb 21, 2012 Laura C. rated it 4 of 5 stars

After reading this book, by the scholarly Lyndall Gordon, who in her other life is a senior research fellow at St. Hilda’s college in Oxford, England, I realized I was still reading Emily Dickinson’s poetry like the Jr High kid I was when I was first introduced to her works. Ms Gordon gives us a much more complicated portrait of her than the one I had imagined of a shy recluse hidden away in frustration at the limitations of 19th century women. Most interesting to me is Gordon’s advocacy of epil...more

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Oct 07, 2011 Jenny McPhee rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

At the end of Lyndall Gordon’s Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds, the biographer describes the source of the poet’s genius as: “...a hidden life like a ‘Bomb’ in her bosom. The poetry it fueled,” she advises, “must be seen in terms of New England individualism, the Emersonian ethos of self-reliance which in its fullest bloom eludes classification. It’s more radical and quirky than anything in Europe, more awkward and less loveable than English eccentricity; in fact,...more At the end of Lyndall Gordon’s Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds, the biographer describes the source of the poet’s genius as: “...a hidden life like a ‘Bomb’ in her bosom. The poetry it fueled,” she advises, “must be seen in terms of New England individualism, the Emersonian ethos of self-reliance which in its fullest bloom eludes classification. It’s more radical and quirky than anything in Europe, more awkward and less loveable than English eccentricity; in fact, dangerous.”

It gives me enormous pleasure to inaugurate my Bookslut column, which I have entitled The Bombshell (bomb-shell: a shattering or devastating act, event, etc.; a fair-haired person, esp. a woman, of startling vitality or physique. -OED), with Gordon’s bombshell of a book about one of literature’s greatest bombshells, who also happened to be a flaming redhead.

“Dangerous” is hardly how I would have described the “Belle of Amherst.” “Demure,” “quaint,” “virtuous,” “retreating” come more readily to mind. The publication of Lives Like Loaded Guns (a title taken from the poem: “My Life has stood—a Loaded Gun”) blows apart the persistent myth of the meek, fragile spinster of odd rhymes. Gordon shows us that Dickinson was a rebel who defied convention, her poetry volcanic, her lines thunderbolts from Vulcan’s forge. At Mount Holyoke, Dickinson refused to declare herself a Christian. (“‘Faith’ is a fine invention/When Gentlemen can see—/But Microscopes are prudent/In an Emergency.”) At eighteen, she deplored housework assignments: “...so many wants–and me so very handy–and my time of so little account – and my writing so very needless.” She trumpeted gender issues: “Amputate my freckled Bosom!/Make me bearded like a man!” And though Emily fell in love several times, once seriously, she depicts marriage as “Born— Bridalled— Shrouded— /In a day— .”

Dickinson’s confidence in her poetic ability was supreme: “It was given to me by the Gods—/When I was a little Girl—.” She knew her work placed her ahead of her time, made her prophetic. Indeed, Gordon points out how the lines: “Perception of an Object costs/Precise the Object’s loss— ” (1865), anticipate Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. A ferociously ambitious writer, Dickinson took great pains to ensure her work would one day reach the universal audience she knew it deserved. In selecting her friends she considered their worthiness as readers of her work -- in 1863 she sent 295 poems to her friends and family.

Read the rest of the review here at Bookslut:
http://www.bookslut.com/the_bombshell...(less)

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Jul 21, 2011 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

A comprehensive and riveting biography of Emily Dickinson, though she dies midway through the book. Gordon is primarily concerned with how the tangled relationships of the Dickinson family , namely Austin Dickinson's adulterous affair with Mabel Loomis Todd,affected the legacy and myth of the poet, the consequences of which are still felt today. Gordon chronicles the family feud which began in E.D's lifetime, resulting in two camps: the Todds, supported by Austin Dickinson, and Austin's wife Sus...more A comprehensive and riveting biography of Emily Dickinson, though she dies midway through the book. Gordon is primarily concerned with how the tangled relationships of the Dickinson family , namely Austin Dickinson's adulterous affair with Mabel Loomis Todd,affected the legacy and myth of the poet, the consequences of which are still felt today. Gordon chronicles the family feud which began in E.D's lifetime, resulting in two camps: the Todds, supported by Austin Dickinson, and Austin's wife Susan and their children. E.D's sister Lavinia shifts her loyalties between the two camps which was partly responsible for the poet's letters and poems being divided, published separately and eventually residing at two different institutions: Harvard and Amherst College. There ensued a battle through publication, Susan Dickinson and her daughter Mattie after her on one side, Mabel Loomis Todd and her daughter Millicent on the other. The battle was partly for the rights to define the Dickinson myth and legacy but, the underlying battle, it seems to me, revolved around ownership of Austin Dickinson.
I don't know how a reader could come away from this book and not view Mabel Loomis Todd as a power hungry parasite. Not only did she seduce Austin Dickinson and carry on a not-so-clandestine affair in staid Amherst that would last the rest of his life, she vilified Susan in her own lifetime, attempted (and succeeded to a great extent) to erase Emily's affection for her and reached beyond her time to define Susan's legacy to a greater extent than she defined E.D's. It's reprehensible how this woman acted and that she succeeded. One would think that stealing Austin's affections and turning him against his own children would be enough, but Todd wanted to obliterate Susan, going so far as to erase her name from poems E.D addressed and intended for her. I found this the greatest tragedy of the book, more fascinating than Gordon's controversial theory about E.D's lifelong illness. Todd succeeded in vilifying Susan and made her fictions part of the historic record, the echoes of which are heard today. There are still two camps, though not so embroiled in conflict. On a recent visit to the Dickinson museum in Amherst, I was told by a guide that Emily and Susan had a very close but 'strained' relationship. There was an implication that Susan was ambitious, an accusation originally made by Todd which described the accuser to a T. Letters and diaries don't support the "strained" relationship theory. Todd was an avaricious woman who wanted what Susan had, including Sue's relationship with Emily. Though Austin and Mabel met for trysts in the Homestead parlor while the poet was upstairs, Mabel never met Emily face to face (she saw her for the first time in her casket) and the poet made it rather clear, in her way, that she was no friend to the interloper.
I'm sure Gordon will be relegated, by some, to Susan Dickinson's camp with the publication of this book, but readers can't ignore the extensive research and the use of voluminous primary resources. Todd's diary entries and letters to Austin pretty much lay the situation bare. I think Gordon has written a real history of the Dickinson's tangled affairs that transcends both camps.(less)

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Jan 14, 2011 Gini rated it 4 of 5 stars

...just finished reading the Emily Dickinson biography —and will never think of the dash — in the same way again!
Idiosyncratic punctuation aside, what vile people! From what I've read about the artists I greatly admire, I wouldn't want to meet most of them; I'd rather stick to their work. Emily, with her long-standing reputation as the white dress clad virginal recluse, is here portrayed as a killer of kittens who leaves their putrefying corpses in a bucket, who is too self absorbed to stray fr...more

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Oct 15, 2011 Pamela rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a slow, slow book--so much detail to digest; apparently the author researched thoroughly. The digressions and asides along with the author's writing style make me rate the book lower. The book seems aimed at those studying Dickinson, not those who just want to know more about her.

The most important development in the book is the author's suppositions that Dickinson's reclusiveness was not a personality quirk but rather a family attempt to hide her frequent seizures resulting from epilep...more

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Oct 01, 2010 Elaine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Even if you have never read a line of Emily Dickinson and have no intention of doing so, this is an important and engrossing, if not a salacious read. If you have read her, this is a must in order to understand what her amazing poems are saying. And, I say this believing fully that I understood many of her poems beforehand.

Any images you've imbibed of Emily as a chaste, sexless, recluse will be shattered by Gordon, who bases her conclusions not only on an exhaustive study of Emily's poetry, but...more

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Mar 15, 2012 Tom rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The UK cover in Virago has a great/awful stealth chick-lit cover which somehow makes me want this to be so much trashier than it is. Dickinson dies (spoilers) about halfway through; this is okay, I was getting a little tired of her. The Major New Research Idea was one about physical illness; it's sort of dropped in there, and not really the hook for the entire thing - I guess someone had done the Oh You See She Was Not Really The Myth Of Amherst book before, because in some ways this seems like...more

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Nov 12, 2010 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found the beginning of this book tedious, which I think is partly because I didn't have time to read more than two or three pages at a time and partly because I'm not a huge poetry fan. (Gordon kept quoting little chunks of ED's poems--the "loaded gun" line was probably quoted a bit too much, in my opinion.) Once I got to Chepter 5 and read Gordon's thoughts on the possibility of ED having epilepsy, I was much more engaged in the story. All in all, the story of ED's family and friends was fasc...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Barbara Ardinger rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is an astonishing book. I read some of Dickinson's poetry of course in college, but I never guessed what her real story was. Here is my review from Feathered Quill:

Lives like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds

When we took our American lit classes in high school and college and read a few poems by Emily Dickinson, who lived from 1830 to 1886, we learned that the poet was a woman disappointed in love, a recluse in a white dress who flitted around her family’s house in Amherst...more This is an astonishing book. I read some of Dickinson's poetry of course in college, but I never guessed what her real story was. Here is my review from Feathered Quill:

Lives like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds

When we took our American lit classes in high school and college and read a few poems by Emily Dickinson, who lived from 1830 to 1886, we learned that the poet was a woman disappointed in love, a recluse in a white dress who flitted around her family’s house in Amherst, Massachusetts. We further learn that she wrote letters to a “master” who apparently spurned her and that her poetry is full of funny punctuation and striking images. We read a few of her poems (“Because I could not stop for Death – / He kindly stopped for me….”) and then turn the page to read about Edith Wharton, Henry James, and Louisa May Alcott, and that’s it. We know all about 19th century American literature.

Well, not quite. English biographer Lyndall Gordon, who is famous for her biographies of T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and Charlotte Brontë, has explored the Dickinson family through letters to and from numerous family members and friends plus Emily’s poetry. Lives Like Loaded Guns opens with a paragraph worthy of a daytime soap: "In 1882 Austin Dickinson, in his fifties, fell in love with a young faculty wife. Twenty-six years before, Austin had married Susan Gilbert, the friend of his sister..." (pg.3)

Austin had courted both his wife Susan and Susan’s sister. So had Austin’s sister Emily. (The author tells us that it was common in the 19th century for women to write letters to each other using the most passionate terms. The letters sounded like love letters. Emily was “courting” Sue to become her “sister.”) Mabel Loomis Todd was the wife of a philandering astronomer. After she seduced Austin, they conducted daily “visits” in the house where Emily was living upstairs. Meanwhile, the poet herself was living a hidden life not because, as Gordon discovered using primary and secondary sources, she was disappointed in love—she was, like other members of the family—an epileptic. But epilepsy was as shameful as mental disease in the 19th century. Convulsions had to be hidden. And Emily’s famous white dresses? She wore them to preserve her physical cleanliness and moral purity. And was she a spurned woman? Gordon found evidence that, yes, while she did correspond with prominent men, she also found comfort in the arms of a retired judge. Mabel Loomis Todd tried to become friends with the poet but apparently never met her face to face, even though she (Mabel) had a valiant coconspirator in Lavinia, the sister of Emily and Austin. Before the book’s half done, the Dickenson family begins to sound like Desperate Intellectuals/Puritans of Amherst. Their story, plus the feud between them and Mabel Loomis Todd, turns an episode of American literature into a compelling soap opera.

After Emily died, Mabel managed to get some of the poet’s work, which she edited and published. All along, Mabel (and Lavinia) had slandered Susan Dickinson. Their daughters carried on the feud into the 20th century, when various parties were searching the Dickinson houses and finding more and more of Emily’s poems and letters. It’s a fascinating literary detective story.

Features of Lives Like Loaded Guns include a map of the town center of Amherst, showing where Emily lived, where the Todds lived, and other locations. Next is a dramatis personae that is very useful as complications in the lives of these people arise and tangle up. The illustrations include photos of the Dickinson family members, their friends and enemies and correspondents, and their homes. Especially interesting is a series of photos of Emily that transforms her from a plain Jane to our familiar fragile poetess. (Gee, Photoshopping isn’t new.)

Quill says: Toss the supermarket tabloids and read Lives Like Loaded Guns. You’ll learn a lot more about one of America’s greatest poets than your English teachers ever said. Or knew until now. (less)

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Jun 24, 2012 Loraine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow! Where is a 6-star rating when you need it? Lyndall Gordon is a remarkable biographer, with a superb writing style. Meticulously researched, the 90+ pages of notes, sources, and acknowledgments are the only evidence of Ms. Gordon's academic background. She can write . . . with passion, and fire, and poetic imagination. I know immensely more about my favorite poet after reading Gordon's biography . . . there were whole chapters in which I felt as if I were living in and breathing the same Amh...more

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Sep 04, 2012 Leah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, all-time-favorites

Judging from other reviews, if people gave this book a lower rating, it's often because they were confused a bit as to its subject. This is not a straight biography of Emily Dickinson, although you do get that, too. Instead, it's a study of family dynamics, and a look at how one misstep (albeit one that lasted for years) between two people impacted everyone around them, even stretching into the future to affect their children and the public view and cultural legacy of a woman who was basically a...more

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Aug 22, 2010 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sept-oct-2010

Despite a host of books about Dickinson and her work, Lives Like Loaded Guns is full of surprises regarding the poet's life and influences. Although Gordon reaches for conclusions to some of the bigger questions--among them Dickinson's possible epilepsy, her love life, and the complicated relationship she had with her brother, Austin, his wife, and his mistress (who aspired to edit the poet's work)--the author's research into Dickinson's medical records and correspondence breathes fresh air into...more

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Apr 01, 2013 Julie rated it 1 of 5 stars

To borrow some 19th Century phrasing, this book was not impassioned. Worse, this book reads like the writings of someone who has had a stroke: repeatedly, the author starts with a whisper of an idea, gains a bit of momentum, and then suddenly trails off again into a multitude of disparate thoughts, all as ephemeral as a spider's webbing

There are many valuable scholarly contributions hidden within this maddening biography: for the first time, we see what truly went on behind the closed doors of t...more

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Sep 18, 2012 Blanche rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, poetry

A remarkable view of a remarkable poet, and the long-lived feuds to control her poetic legacy. I was simply blown away by the amount of source material available: journals, letters, even recordings from first and second generation participants in the battles. This was definitely a view of the poet that I have never seen before, and one that appeared to be well-researched (though the author did occasionally use very dramatic descriptions without making it clear whether she was drawing from actual...more

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Apr 20, 2011 Kristine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir-or-biography

Emily Dickinson's poetic genius is hardly in dispute, but for anyone with patience wanting to read a whole lot more detail about Dickinson's life and times, this might be the book for you. Its strength and weakness is that it is really two books in one. Much of this book leaves Emily herself lost in the background as the focus shifts to family and others -- and what happens once Emily is dead. Some of that story is fascinating in a soap opera style way and hovers around the poems Emily has left...more

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Oct 05, 2012 Deb rated it 5 of 5 stars

I don't have it in me anymore to read into the wee hours of the night, but this title kept me reading past midnight. It's partially a biography of the poet, but more completely about the "war between the houses" that affected both the publication of the poems and the public perception of Emily Dickinson as artist and woman. The "war" began between Mabel Loomis Todd, the first editor of the poems and the mistress of Dickinson's brother Austin, and Susan Gilbert, Austin's wife. Dickinson's sister...more I don't have it in me anymore to read into the wee hours of the night, but this title kept me reading past midnight. It's partially a biography of the poet, but more completely about the "war between the houses" that affected both the publication of the poems and the public perception of Emily Dickinson as artist and woman. The "war" began between Mabel Loomis Todd, the first editor of the poems and the mistress of Dickinson's brother Austin, and Susan Gilbert, Austin's wife. Dickinson's sister Lavinia, who facilitated Austin's affair by delivering letters and allowing the lovers to meet in her house, later turned against Mabel in a dispute over land and the ownership of the poems. The daughters of the two principles, Martha Dickinson Bianchi and Millicent Todd Bingham, carried the feud into the next generation. Those familiar with Dickinson's biography know all these names, but I imagine a casual reader might be overwhelmed at times.

Gordon attempts to be objective and fair in recounting these battles. She acknowledges Todd's indispensable role in editing the poems, but presents her as both petty and selfish in her treatment of Sue and Sue's children. Gordon claims that even the "definitive" biography by Richard Sewall is seeded with distortions about Sue Gilbert fed him by the Todd camp.

Lavinia is depicted as an unexpectedly stubborn protector of the family's literary legacy, but also as a blatant perjurer in the lawsuit over land.

The early chapters of the book, focusing on Dickinson herself, are a shade less interesting, if only because the material is so well-worn. Every new biographer invents her own Emily to a degree, and every one of them has to speculate. Gordon's contribution to the speculation-fest is that Dickinson might have suffered from epilepsy. As an explanation for her life of seclusion, I find epilepsy more credible than romantic disappointment: outside of novels, who really shuts herself away for life because of a lost love?

She spends little time on the "Master letters" - drafts of letters to an unnamed male correspondent that have sparked endless speculation about Dickinson's supposed Tragic Love; indeed, she proposes that these letters may have been mostly fantasy or literary exercise. Instead of wallowing in romance, Gordon presents some intriguing evidence that the poet who claimed "Publication -- is the Auction Of the Mind of Man" may have made a few tentative attempts to publish, and gave up when she was rebuffed. She suggests that Dickinson's attachment to Samuel Bowles may have had as much to do with his position as an editor than his charms as a lover. I appreciated Gordon's focus on Dickinson the serious, ambitious artist who expected her words to give her immortality. (less)

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May 13, 2011 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

I finally 'get' ED after reading this fascinating bio. A quasi-feminist take on Emily's life positing the fascinating theory that she was hidden away due to epilepsy. Yet she had the strength of character to reject rising peer pressure to center one's life around christianity in mid-nineteenth century New England, as one of the first students at Mt. Holyoke. Her authoritarian brother's wild late-life affair with a twenty-something social climber is an astounding tale and was reflected in ED's la...more

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Apr 23, 2011 Wendy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

If you like Emily Dickinson, this book is a must. Throw away all the stuff you've heard about her before, and see the Dickinson family as one more dysfunctional mess where adultery, avarice, blind ambition, and debilitating illnesses play against a backdrop of puritanical beliefs falling apart as women begin to emerge as more than mere property of husbands. One more piece must be thrown in--Emily's sheer genius and how she revealed it to friends, family, and others. The result is a spider web of...more

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Jul 21, 2011 Ellen rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm rather surprised by some of the low ratings regarding this book. I'd read the Guardian's rave review of it when the hardcover was published and was anticipating the paperback, which was released right about the time when I realised that the A level English Lit exam specification was changing and that I'd be teaching Dickinson next year -- for the first time since the '90s when I was still in the US teaching American literature. This book was a must read.

It's quite impressive. Gordon's resear...more

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May 04, 2011 Kathryn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Interesting book delving into the family dynamics of Emily Dickinson, her sister Lavinia, brother Austin and his wife Sue, and Austin's mistress Mabel. The author claims to have delved deeper into their relationships, and came to different conclusions than previous biographers. Gordon claims Emily had epilepsy, which is what kept her housebound, and that she did have lovers but didn't marry because of her epilepsy. Gordon also differs from others in her analysis of Sue, Austin's wife, and Mabel,...more

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Feb 11, 2013 Alison rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: kwls

When I heard Lyndall Gordon speak at the Key West Literary Seminar this year, I knew I had to buy her book on Emily Dickinson. I could just tell from the way that she prepared, and her ability to answer questions she didn't prepare for, that she was a tremendous researcher and writer. This book proves my assumption.

I have loved Emily Dickinson for years. I think hers was the first poetry I ever read. I kept a copy of "I'm Nobody" taped to my wall through high school. I've read Collected Poems co...more

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Sep 15, 2010 Kristin rated it 3 of 5 stars

I had no idea how scandal-ridden the Dickinson family was. There is a lot of dirt in this book centering on an affair that took place between Emily's brother and his mistress. Emily is above-board and maintains integrity, but the book does a good job of highlighting her weirdness. The beginning of the book tends to be a lot of literary analysis of her poetry - the author tries to interpret poems in terms of events of her life. Honestly, I like the pure narrative better and brushed past the criti...more

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Feb 02, 2011 Jen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

My preconceived notions about this book was that this was the book that claimed Emily Dickinson had epilepsy. I was curious, but slightly hesitant; I've read so many Dickinson biographies -- what was this one going to bring to the table?

So the epilepsy thing? Just one chapter and an interesting notion, that's all. This book brought to light just how snarky things got between Dickinson's sister-in-law and Dickinson's brother's mistress, Mabel Loomis Todd after Emily's death. Crazy, crazy stuff....more

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Aug 16, 2012 Jackie added it

This book has made me a skeptic of most biographies. Emily Dickinson was a recluse. The woman who assumed control for releasing her papers to the public and forming public opinon of the poet never met Dickinson. In fact, the only time she ever laid eyes on the poet was when she was laid out in her coffin. Unbiased scholars were unable to wrest control of the surviving Dickinson papers from this woman's descendants until the 1960's.

Emily Dickinson's life was one of sharp contrast to Louisia May...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Susan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow, what a story! Oh my goodness, where do I start? This book is a meticulously researched sordid story, all the more amazing because it is true. Ms. Gordon casts light on Emily Dickinson's life and writings, as well as the affair between her brother Austen and the absolutely despicable future editor of many of Emily's poems. The book covers Emily's life and work, casts light on her reclusive nature and its probable causes, and as well, covers the generations after her death, when the inter-fam...more

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7224464-lives-like-loaded-guns?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347642758l/7224464.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7224464-lives-like-loaded-guns?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds by Lyndall Gordon[/url]

Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds

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Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds

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