Using Emily Dickinson's poetry and the facts known about her life, Michaela MacColl (Prisoners in the Palace) fashions a suspenseful, often humorous historical novel in which a 15-year-old Emily plays detective when a stranger to town winds up facedown in her family's pond.
Emily is out in the meadow attempting to lure a bee to her nose when a young gentleman approaches her. She asks him who he is, and he tells her he's "nobody important." When he asks her what she's doing, she risks answering him honestly: "Hoping a bee would land on my nose." He takes her pursuit seriously and daubs some honey on her nose, from a piece of honeycomb, to help her achieve her goal ("I have a relation who keeps bees," he explains). She calls him Mr. Nobody, he calls her Miss Nobody, and the author creates instant chemistry between them. Their exchange derives from Emily Dickinson's poem--"I'm Nobody! Who are you?/ Are you--Nobody--Too?"--which also serves as the opening chapter's heading. This sets the clever structure for MacColl's novel: each chapter begins with lines from a Dickinson poem that suits the events to follow.
When Mr. Nobody turns up dead, Emily becomes determined to figure out how Mr. Nobody died as well as his true identity. Emily, being a poet, pays attention to details, and she uncovers one clue after another. Her father is out of town on business, but Emily does not hesitate to invoke his name in her quest for answers. MacColl depicts an era when intelligence is not valued as highly in a woman as it is in a man. (Emily's father "buys me books all the time, but tells me not to read them," Emily tells Mr. Nobody.) Yet she wins over Dr. Gridley and Reverend Colton with her clear reasoning. The author smoothly integrates other historical details, such as the plight of Horace Goodman, the freedman who works for a family in town, Emily's family's role in the founding of Amherst College, and Emily's discomfort with the idea of God being worshipped only in the church. Emily feels God's presence more keenly in Nature--much like the Transcendentalists writing at the time. An afterword includes a wealth of resources for those who wish to learn more about Emily Dickinson and her poetry.
As reclusive as Dickinson reportedly was, MacColl demonstrates how accessible her poetry was, and why Emily Dickinson has earned a place as one of America's most beloved poets. --Jennifer M. Brown
Shelf Talker: A young Emily Dickinson solves the mystery of a stranger's death in her small town of Amherst, Mass., in this inventive novel.