The secret life of . . .

Due to the Brontë mentions in several reviews of Jerome Charyn's The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson this might look like DickinsonBlog today. We do love Emily Dickinson, so that's not too bad.

From The Washington Post:

As the novel moves along, her various romantic obsessions peak and pass, one by one, in fits of hysterical devotion and outrageous behavior ("I have never had such gymnastics performed upon my face. . . . I have no more morals than a harem girl"). Much of the time she seems to be reenacting her own mash-up of "Jane Eyre" and "The Rape of the Lock." Even after she leaves the rakish college boys behind and settles into her old-maid status as "the Squire's eccentric daughter, a meteor in the dark glasses, hopping along like a wingless bird," she still entertains a series of romantic possibilities. (Ron Charles)

From the Fairfield County Weekly:

It was, in fact, also an exciting time in letters. Dickinson felt great fellowship with the Brontës, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and George Eliot. She called them her fellow "Kangaroos," authoresses shunned and mocked by polite society as strange, odd and most certainly un-marriageable. (Nora Nahid Khan)

From Reuters:

Other recent books re-imagining dead writers have reinterpreted and sexualized such authors as Emily Bronte and Jane Austen. (Editing by Mark Egan and Cynthia Osterman)

What we don't know about this last mention is whether they actually mean Denise Giardina's Emily's Ghost or whether they are mixing it up with Syrie James's The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë.

EDIT 25/02: The New Yorker takes a look at recent/forthcoming publications about Emily Dickinson and mentions Jerome Charyn's book as well:

A particular set of “ladies” make repeat appearances in this genre: the Brontës, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, and Virginia Woolf (on the late end of this category), whose “Mrs. Dalloway” became distressingly fashionable thanks to Michael Cunningham’s literary mash-up, “The Hours.” Such books, though, are not only written about women—Nicholson Baker’s “U and I” comes to mind—nor as we see, are they necessarily written by women. (That they may be written for women is a discussion for another time.) Regardless, James is onto something: we seem to want something from these women of the past. We ask special things of them. We want them to be feminists or strong-willed lovers. To be rebels or modern heroes. (Ian Crouch)

Well, back now to our old self: BrontëBlog mode on. The Salt Lake City Romance Novels Examiner interviews erotic Romance writer J. Hali Steele.

Do you remember the first Romance novel you read?
I read so many growing up, but I’d bet it was one of the classics. I loved Wuthering Heights. There’s the Wolf and the Dove. Another story that stays with me is Atlas Shrugged but I’m not sure you could call that a romance. John Galt epitomized the phrase alpha male for me! (Fran Lee)

Again, we would label Wuthering Heights Romantic, but not so much romance, to be honest.

Babbling about Books and More interviews another writer, Angela Morrison, author of Sing Me To Sleep.

KB: What does the future hold for you? Any future projects you can tell us about?Angela: This fall I wrote the sequel to TAKEN BY STORM--UNBROKEN CONNECTION. Penguin is considering it. I hope to have good news one of these days, but there is no guarantees in this business. Next, I'll work on the third Leesie/Michael novel, CAYMAN SUMMER.I also have an historical heartbreaking romance, MY ONLY LOVE, that I'm still revising. And I'm thinking about replacing my obnoxious tween boy hero in that time slip novel I told you about earlier with a Bronte-esque Victorian heroine. Think Jane Eyre meets the Terminator--but this guy ain't no robot. He's way too hot for a middle grade adventure. See, everything I write turns into YA. I love the coming of age journey and how love plays a part in it.

Silk and Shadows writes about the Brontës. Napleton Book Review and Mafia Man post briefly about Wuthering Heights. Cookie2697 has read Jane Eyre, the novel, and A Life in Books has read Jane Eyre, the Classical Comics adaptation.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights