'Raven's Bride' marries history and pathos, lore and love

Book: The Raven's Bride
Author: Lenore Hart
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (New York: 2011)
Reviewed by: Gale Martin

As someone who appreciated Edgar Allan Poe's stories from my first reading of them as a teen, I was intrigued by the premise of Lenore Hart's newest book, The Raven's Bride, a fictionalized account of the short life of Poe's young wife, Virginia "Sissy" Clemm.

I'd even heard Hart share vignettes from her book (a work-in-progress at that time) during faculty readings at Wilkes University's creative writing program, finding her scenes entertaining and memorable. Who wouldn't appreciate fly-on-the-wall glimpses into the master mind of the most haunting stories ever published: "The Tell Tale Heart," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Black Cat"? My only misgiving before reading the entire work was this: Could a story centering on Poe's wife--not the tormented artist himself--intrigue over the span of a full-length novel?

Unlike Becky, Hart's novel immediately preceding The Raven's Bride based on Mark Twain's fictional character Becky Thatcher, Hart had the added challenge of rendering an accurate accounting of a real person's life while telling a robust story from his wife's point-of-view.

Poe aficionados will be pleased to know that Hart remained scrupulously faithful to history's record of the lives of  Edgar ("Eddy") and his wife "Sissy," including many of the expected milestones of Poe's writing life--the sales of his first and most well-known tales and poems; his relocations up and down the East Coast, to Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York; and even his reputed drinking binges, as he both chased and reclaimed a career in publishing until two years before his death.

Hart accomplished all this while crafting a story that surprised, entertained, and chilled, employing some of the conventions of Poe's own gothic tales. Yes, it is part ghost story that captures rather than strains the imagination. Wholly, it is a consummate love story that begs the reader to consider whether true love ends with death--or only begins there. Unrequited love at first, then romantic love, then tainted love.

But The Raven's Bride is is too intricately crafted to be just a love story. Poe and Virginia's love is too complex, tinged with sacrifice and slavish devotion, foreboding martyrdom and doom.

Virginia was only thirteen when Edgar proposed. She herself contributed no single work to the annals of American literature. She never worked--it wasn't seemly--she only sang and played pianoforte a little and therefore never contributed to their household income even though they nearly starved to death more than once. Considering all these variables, Virginia Clemm was still remarkable and worthy of Hart's novelization. Had Virginia Clemm not devoted her life to her cousin and husband "Eddy," he might have extinguished his own flame at even a younger age than he did, and the world wouldn't have the body of work that generations of readers have loved because it's always "been there." Some later writer would have had to invent the detective story because Poe wouldn't have been around to do it.

He was a tragic figure riddled with tragic flaws, who staved off death from alcoholism or suicide because of the abiding love of his adoring cousin, then spurred by a co-dependent (by today's standards), desperate need to keep her alive once it was clear that consumption would claim her life at a young age.

Here is a passage taken from the middle of the book, when Edgar takes Virginia on what he hoped was a pleasant outing, but they are caught in a rainstorm on the way back, which dangerously aggravates her consumption and nearly kills her. Eddy, stricken with guilt, goes on a two-day bender, before returning to her bedside, dirty, reeking of alcohol, and desolate:

He sank to his knees by the bed. "I couldn't bear to see you lying there, it was happening--you were dying again." He laid his forehead on my hand like a child. He was my child--the only one, I dimly understood by then, I would ever have. (p. 209)

As historical fiction, the overall plot of The Raven's Bride is readily accessible in any biographical blurb of Poe published in print or online. Since Hart is a master of her craft--storytelling, I don't want to spoil the unique literary experience for the reader she contrives to set up the book. Let me just say that this handling of the gray, misty world between life and death, Clemm's and Poe's, between heaven and hell that Hart wraps around the historical record, envelops the reader and doesn't let go until the last page and constitutes some of the most surprising and satisfying elements of The Raven's Bride.

Author Lenore Hart

I've read books where accomplished writers become so bogged down in their historical research that they lose the story. This is not that kind of book. Hart's research illuminates her characters and their plights and elevates the overall reading experience. The reader has a front row seat to many of Poe's literary triumphs and his most crushing defeats. It's the kind of book that makes you feel smarter while you're reading it, conjuring the feeling that you are have been initiated into a select or insider's group having read it--you now know more about Poe's life and times than lots of other people in the world.

Because they suffered so much privation, Poe and his child bride did not have a happy life. But Hart has given voice to many happy moments with such color and vivacity that you are buoyed along at times while still able to take measure of the downward spiral of their entwined lives.

If you want to feel as though you are much smarter than the average person and love that happy-reader glow of superiority, as I do, which can be derived from reading certain kinds of books, you'd better rush out and buy The Raven's Bride (available February 15). A Brazilian publisher just bought the rights to the book, so it won't be long before potentially 180,000,000 readers are just as smart as me and you.

My rating of The Raven's Bride:

Four out of four noggins

Want to learn more about Lenore Hart and her work? Visit her website.