Pale Shadows

(Paperback)

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Description

Dickinson after her death: the story of the trio of women who brought the first collection of Emily Dickinsons poems out of the shadows

Grieving the loss of her sister and alone in a big house, Lavinia goes through Emilys things and wonders what to do with her sisters poems. She enlists the help of Susan, Emilys best friend and brother Austins wife, who rouses herself from a deep depression to put the poems into some order to approach a publisher. Lavinia also brings Austins mistress, Mabel, into the project for her worldliness and connections. In the wings, there is Millicent, Mabels daughter, a little girl like Emily in spirit, wise and strong-willed, and fascinated by things big and small in the world around her.

Delicate like lacework with dark threads running through it, Pale Shadows picks up the story of Emily Dickinson where Paper Houses left off, to explore the place of women in history, their creativity, and the enduring power of Dickinsons poetry.

Reviews

I was as delighted by this book as I was by Paper Houses, in part because I was happy to return to the lacework world Fortier creates with her voice. This handover between writers in time is the essence of literature. Because books do not die. That is the only consolation of mortals who read. Chantal Guy, La Presse

Dominique Fortiers sixth novel, Pale Shadows, is enchanted. [] It is meant to be taken in slowly, savouring each sentence. Ariane Cipriani, Culture Club

This luminous story brings us closer to Emily Dickinsons poems, leaves the light shines through, and closer to the inspired grace of Dominique Fortier. Monique Roy, Chatelaine

Paper Houses and Pale Shadows are the positive and negative of a single image, two facets of the same story. La Harvey, Le Soleil

A novel filled with figments and ghosts, the living and the dead, words and silence. Yvon Par, Littrature du Qubec

I cant remember on what page I started to read Pale Shadows out loud, but it happened naturally. What I was left with, even more dazzlingly still, was the beauty of Dominique Fortiers prose and of Emily Dickinsons poetry. Marie-Anne Poggi, Club des irrsistibles

Pale Shadows is an elegant, delicate book, a treasure for your bookcase. Marie-Anne Poggi, Club des irrsistibles

Author Bio

Dominique Fortier is an editor and translator living in Outremont, Quebec. Her first novel, Du bon usage des toiles (2008), was nominated for a Governor General's Award and the Prix des Libraires du Qubec, and Au pril de la mer won the Governor General's Award for French fiction. She is the author of five books, four of which have been translated into English: On the Proper Use of Stars, Wonder, The Island of Books, and Paper Houses.