Emily's Ghost

A new biofiction book on the Brontës will be released next July 27:

Emily's Ghost
By Denise Giardina

First published 27 July, 2009.
Hardback by W.W.Norton, 384pp
ISBN-10: 039306915X
ISBN-13: 978-0393069150

Synopsis

A lustrous, beautifully written reimagining of the Brontë family — and of Emily Brontë's passionate engagement with life.

Enigmatic, intelligent, and fiercely independent, Emily Brontë refuses to bow to the conventions of her day: she is distrustful of marriage, prefers freedom above all else, and walks alone at night on the moors above the isolated rural village of Haworth, Yorkshire.

But Emily's life, along with the rest of the Brontë family, is turned upside down with the arrival of an idealistic clergyman named William Weightman. Weightman champions poor mill workers' rights, mingles with radical labor agitators, and captivates Haworth — and the Brontës especially — with his energy and charm.

An improbable friendship between Weightman and Emily develops into a fiery but unconsummated love affair. And when tragedy strikes, the relationship continues, like the love story at the heart of Emily's beloved novel Wuthering Heights, beyond the grave.

Background

The Bronte sisters have haunted me since before I could read. My mother, when she was young in 1942 and finally in possession of a salary, spent her precious money to buy editions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights illustrated by the evocative engravings of Fritz Eichenberg. As a nonliterate five-year-old I studied the illustrations and tried to tell a story about them. I don't recall my own imaginings. But I have connected ever since.

This novel was conceived in an electric moment. I was lying in bed after a speaking engagement at Eastern Mennonite College in Harrisonburg, Virginia. I lulled myself toward sleep by reading a fine book called The Bronte Myth by Lucasta Miller. Miller pointed out that no one had written a serious novel about the Brontes, and suggested Peter Ackroyd or A.S. Byatt might make the attempt. I sat up straight in bed. No, no, no, I thought. I should write that book!

I knew this because I had already done much of the research, reading every Bronte biography I could get my hands on. But mostly because two of my novels, Storming Heaven and The Unquiet Earth, are connected to Wuthering Heights. In Storming Heaven, narrator Carrie Bishop opens by declaring that she has read Wuthering Heights.

"I loved it, just for the name of it, even before I read it. It has the sound of a lost and precious place, Wuthering Heights. I learned from that book that love and hate are not puny things. Nor are they opposed. Everything in this world that is calculating and bloodless wars against them both, wars against all flesh and blood, earth and water."

The end of Storming Heaven is an inversion of the close of Wuthering Heights, with its speculation about "how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth." In Storming Heaven, with its story of oppression in the coalfields of West Virginia, "no one could ever imagine a quiet slumber for the dead in that earth."

The sequel, The Unquiet Earth, continues this theme and is even more intentionally connected to Emily Bronte's novel. It is, in fact, a retelling whose characters match its predecessor. So Heathcliff is Dillon Freeman, and on — the first Cathy/Rachel, the second Cathy/Jackie, both Lockwood and Hareton/Tom Kolwiecki, Nelly Dean/Hassel Day, Edgar Linton/Arthur Lee Sizemore, Joseph/Doyle Ray Lloyd, Hindley/Uncle Brigham Lloyd. A hint is dropped early in the novel — Dillon and Rachel watch the Olivier version of Wuthering Heights in their local movie theater in the West Virginia coalfields. And of course, there is the title.

I consider Emily's Ghost to be the third book of a trilogy.

An excerpt can be read here.

Stay tuned to BrontëBlog for a review of this book in the coming weeks!

Denise Giardina's Tour:

Monday, July 27 6:00 PM Taylor Books Annex Gallery (Charleston, WV)
Wednesday, July 29 7:00 PM Barnes & Noble (Morgantown, WV)
Friday, July 31 6:30 PM Carpe Librum Booksellers (Knoxville, TN)
Saturday, August 1 7:00 PM Malaprop's Bookstore (Asheville, NC)
Saturday, August 8 11:00 AM McIntyre's (Pittsboro, NC)
Saturday, August 8 3:00 PM The Country Bookshop (Southern Pines, NC)
Monday, August 10 7:00 PM Regulator Bookshop (Durham, NC)
Tuesday, August 11 7:30 PM Quail Ridge Books (Raleigh, NC)
Monday, August 17 7:00 PM Joseph-Beth Booksellers (Lexington, KY)

Categories: Books, Fiction