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Days When My Heart Was Volcanic: A Novel of Edgar Allan Poe
Can there be a chasm deeper than the hollow left in a broken human heart? In this by turns romantic, harrowing, and elegiac novel, best-selling Hollywood biographer James Spada turns to a 19th century celebrity--Edgar Allan Poe. Spada imagines six months in the life of the tortured author of some of the eeriest tales ever written. Narrating this story is handsome twenty-year-old student Jeremiah Delaney, an aspiring poet for whom his idol Poe becomes a mentor. The moment Jeremiah meets Poe's beautiful young wife, he falls obsessively, dangerously in love with her. At the same time he is caught up in Poe's downward spiral into depression, alcohol and opium. Both of these factors, one in Jeremiah's control and the other out of it, set in motion a series of events that threatens to destroy him. "I know in my heart that I am as much at fault as Mr. Poe," Jeremiah admits as he begins this reminiscence. "I cannot blame him more than I blame myself for what knowing him made me desire, made me become, made me do."
216 pages, Paperback
First published August 28, 2010
About the author
James Spada
46 books29 followersJames Spada (23 January 1950 - 18 May 2017) was a American photographer and celebrity biographer.
As a thirteen-year-old kid in Staten Island, James Spada started the first Marilyn Monroe Memorial Fan Club. He produced four bulletins and one yearbook a year for four years, when he had to disband the club due to lack of money.
In college he founded EMK: The Edward M. Kennedy Quarterly, and worked as an intern in Senator Kennedy’s Boston office in 1970.
At 23 his first book, Barbra: The First Decade (The Films and Career of Barbra Streisand), was published. He followed that up with the authorized book The Films of Robert Redford. He went on to write illustrated coffee-table books about Streisand, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Midler, Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty, and Jane Fonda.
In 1987 his first non-pictorial biography, Grace: The Secret Lives of a Princess, became a major international bestseller. He followed that up with intimate biographies of Peter Lawford, Bette Davis, Barbra Streisand, and Julia Roberts.
His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, People, Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, The New York Times Book Review, McCall’s, the Los Angeles Times, the London Sunday Express, and many other publications.
In 2010 his first work of fiction, Days When My Heart was Volcanic—A Novel of Edgar Allan Poe, was published.
In recent years he has become equally renowned as a photographer of the male nude. His first collection, Black & White Men, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award as the Best Visual Arts Book of 2000.
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From "Black & White Men" published in 2000:
Over the past several years, Jim has also become known for his evocative black-and-white studies of the male nude. He has had three one-man exhibitions, most recently in January 2000 at the prestigious Gallery One at the New England School of Photography in Boston. "I've been taking pictures since I was a teenager," Jim says, "but it took a back seat to my celebrity books. Now I d like to be known as a hyphenate, a writer-photographer. Photographing people is very much like writing about them, except that I'm creating the portrait with light rather than words. Light is as much a subject for me as the model."
As a thirteen-year-old kid in Staten Island, James Spada started the first Marilyn Monroe Memorial Fan Club. He produced four bulletins and one yearbook a year for four years, when he had to disband the club due to lack of money.
In college he founded EMK: The Edward M. Kennedy Quarterly, and worked as an intern in Senator Kennedy’s Boston office in 1970.
At 23 his first book, Barbra: The First Decade (The Films and Career of Barbra Streisand), was published. He followed that up with the authorized book The Films of Robert Redford. He went on to write illustrated coffee-table books about Streisand, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Midler, Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty, and Jane Fonda.
In 1987 his first non-pictorial biography, Grace: The Secret Lives of a Princess, became a major international bestseller. He followed that up with intimate biographies of Peter Lawford, Bette Davis, Barbra Streisand, and Julia Roberts.
His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, People, Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, The New York Times Book Review, McCall’s, the Los Angeles Times, the London Sunday Express, and many other publications.
In 2010 his first work of fiction, Days When My Heart was Volcanic—A Novel of Edgar Allan Poe, was published.
In recent years he has become equally renowned as a photographer of the male nude. His first collection, Black & White Men, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award as the Best Visual Arts Book of 2000.
-----------------------------
From "Black & White Men" published in 2000:
Over the past several years, Jim has also become known for his evocative black-and-white studies of the male nude. He has had three one-man exhibitions, most recently in January 2000 at the prestigious Gallery One at the New England School of Photography in Boston. "I've been taking pictures since I was a teenager," Jim says, "but it took a back seat to my celebrity books. Now I d like to be known as a hyphenate, a writer-photographer. Photographing people is very much like writing about them, except that I'm creating the portrait with light rather than words. Light is as much a subject for me as the model."
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 20, 2010
I wrote this book. It's my first work of fiction, and I'm very proud of it. Edgar Allan Poe's life provided so many facets to the story that I feel anyone will enjoy it, not just Poe fans. It's not a gothic novel as Poe might have written it, but the fascinating and heartbreaking story of Poe himself, told through the eyes of a 20-year-old aspiring poet who becomes Poe's protege and who falls obsessively, dangerously in love with Poe's beautiful young wife..
March 22, 2023
It's not bad; it could have gone through more editing, and the historic record is played with, but overall I was suggested this book by another student, not on it's literary merits, but as we were both complaining on the way that the 19th century muses were always described as innocent and childlike. She said that she had encountered the opposite here and I found this take on a mature, rational yet flawed, /human/ Virginia fascinating. Everyone wants the woman behind The Raven's Lenore to be a child or a corpse, not a human being who was a grown 22 year old, and I found this viewpoint refreshing.
September 30, 2010
Much to my surprise (considering the dismal track record of novels featuring Poe) I liked this book very much. It is more imaginative history than a biographical novel, although the author gives the reader full warning that he has mixed known fact with his own fiction. (I truly wish more writers in this genre would do this service to their audience.) The novel depicts the last six months of the life of Virginia Poe, as told by a (fictional) narrator who becomes painfully entangled with the doomed young woman and her legendary husband.
Unlike most books about Poe (both fiction and biography,) where his spouse is usually depicted as the stereotypical "pretty little child-wife" with about as much personality as the wallpaper, "Volcanic" gives us a Virginia who is a central and compelling character. This is the first novel to focus on this strangely neglected young woman since Cothburn O'Neal's 1956 "The Very Young Mrs. Poe." Here--for once--we find a Virginia who is intelligent, perceptive, sweet but strong in character, and perhaps the one person who truly understands her strange husband. (She's also given a definite hint of sensuality, which is completely unprecedented in any characterization of her.) The book's other main characters are plausibly and sympathetically drawn, (aside from Harold Schechter's detective novels, this is the one novel in recent years where Poe, while flawed, is not depicted as a loathsome jerk,) but Spada's Virginia is unique among any books about Poe--whether it be fiction or biography--and it is most welcome. I found myself becoming so involved in the story that by the time I reached Virginia's death--a stunning, and truly Poe-like scene--I honestly wanted to cry. And usually, novels about Poe bring tears to my eyes only because they're so awful.
This book will probably be appreciated the most by anyone curious about Poe's controversial marriage, but it makes interesting reading for any fan of historical fiction.
Unlike most books about Poe (both fiction and biography,) where his spouse is usually depicted as the stereotypical "pretty little child-wife" with about as much personality as the wallpaper, "Volcanic" gives us a Virginia who is a central and compelling character. This is the first novel to focus on this strangely neglected young woman since Cothburn O'Neal's 1956 "The Very Young Mrs. Poe." Here--for once--we find a Virginia who is intelligent, perceptive, sweet but strong in character, and perhaps the one person who truly understands her strange husband. (She's also given a definite hint of sensuality, which is completely unprecedented in any characterization of her.) The book's other main characters are plausibly and sympathetically drawn, (aside from Harold Schechter's detective novels, this is the one novel in recent years where Poe, while flawed, is not depicted as a loathsome jerk,) but Spada's Virginia is unique among any books about Poe--whether it be fiction or biography--and it is most welcome. I found myself becoming so involved in the story that by the time I reached Virginia's death--a stunning, and truly Poe-like scene--I honestly wanted to cry. And usually, novels about Poe bring tears to my eyes only because they're so awful.
This book will probably be appreciated the most by anyone curious about Poe's controversial marriage, but it makes interesting reading for any fan of historical fiction.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews