New from Dominique Fortier: Pale Shadows
Happy pub day to Pale Shadows by Dominique Fortier, translated by Rhonda Mullins!
When she died, Emily Dickinson left behind hundreds of poems scribbled on scraps of paper. She also left behind three formidable women: her steadfast sister, Lavinia; her brother's ambitious mistress, Mabel Loomis Todd; and his grief-stricken wife, Susan Gilbert Dickinson. With no clear instructions from Emily, these three women would, through mourning and strife, make from those scraps of paper a book that would change American literature.From the author of Paper Houses, this is the improbable, almost miraculous, story of the birth of a book years after the death of its author. In these sensitive and luminous pages, Dominique Fortier explores, through Dickinson's poetry, the mysterious power that books have over our lives and the fragile and necessary nature of literature.
“Gorgeous, aching prose… Pale Shadows is a breathtaking contemplation of grief, legacies, and how what a person leaves behind continues to change and inspire the world.”
– ★ Starred Review, Foreword 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
“This luminous story brings us closer to Emily Dickinson’s poems, ‘leaves the light shines through,’ and closer to the inspired grace of Dominique Fortier.”
– Monique Roy, Chatelaine
