White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Brenda Wineapple writes an intimate portrait of Higginson and Dickinson with sensitivity and elegance. I was afraid it would be rather dry, but just the opposite is true. The author is heady and scholarly, but the writing takes off like an engrossing story, lifts you with it. There is nothing stodgy or stuffy about this book. The narrative flows with grace, and her prose style engages you with its intelligent delivery. It is thoroughly researched--while reading it, I was brought back in time and place. I saw through their eyes. I was inside of Dickinson and beside Higginson. At Emily's home in Amherst, I easily felt what she felt when she looked out her window. I look forward to more from this author.

Brenda Wineapple's expertise as a biographer is evident on every page. She knows how to handle her massive research without intruding on the main narrative. She knows how to balance conflicting views of her two protagonists, evoking sympathy and admiration for both. She is able to place them deftly in the context of their moment in American history. She reads Dickinson's poems with sensitivity and skill. White Heat deserves the great reception it has received so far, and even surpassed expectations I had after reading reviews in the NY Times and The New Yorker.

If you love Emily Dickinson, you will love this book. If you're not familiar with her work, get this book and prepare to become a fan.

At first glance, even from the old photos, they seem like vastly different people. Thomas Wentworth Higginson was a man of various talents. He was a well-traveled writer, yes; but he was also involved in public service and the reform movement, and he was intent on seeking out a certain amount of fame and celebrity for himself. Emily Dickinson was the quintessential homebody who saw the world mostly from her bucolic Main Street window. She wrote poetry that she shared only with close friends or tucked away in the bottom drawer of her dresser. Higginson grew up in the realm of liberal Unitarianism and Harvard College. Dickinson's conservative grandfather was a devout Congregationalist who founded Amherst College. Their families represented the opposite edges of life in New England in the 1800s. Yet it was WORDS that brought these unlikely correspondents together. With "White Heat," Brenda Wineapple follows the current trend of studying history through dual biography, or vice versa. Odds are good that much of the reading public will recognize only one of the two names listed in the title, for Emily's storied reputation precedes her. Even those who cannot recite her lines by heart "know" that she was a recluse who wasn't published much during her lifetime. But what parts of her myth are true, and which are not? Wineapple does her best to unravel the life of the real Emily Dickinson -- or, at least, as close to reality as we can guess. Fans of the Transcendentalists know well of Wentworth Higginson, the former minister who was a disciple of Thoreau and one of John Brown's Secret Six. They will have heard something about him becoming Dickinson's literary agent of sorts, publishing her work posthumously. But how did he come to be so involved with her? How did he gain access to her poetry? What's the rest of the story? Here we learn that Emily sent her first letter to Wentworth in 1862, prompted by an article he wrote in the Atlantic Monthly, and thus began a correspondence and friendship that lasted until her death in 1886. (She initially asked for writing advice and included samples of her poems; he was so awed that he knew he had none to give.) We follow their lives chronologically and discover much about their personalities through their letters and other writings. Wentworth even visited Emily on several occasions, and she greeted him at the door with bouquets of flowers. Thus is it easy for the romantics among us to imagine that the two were in love. But Wentworth was married, and Emily was coquettishly playful but kept her distance. Only in her cryptic verses did she allow a glimpse of her thoughts and emotions. And after she was gone, her best friend did his best to share her gifts with the rest of the world. (As if having a book published today isn't challenging enough: How difficult must it have been to try to assemble a volume of someone's poems with both her sister and her brother's mistress demanding involvement