A review by irishannie
A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain , Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Martin Johnson Heade by Christopher E.G. Benfey

4.0

19th-century Americans were not so much different than you or I. They were obsessed by sex, alcohol and exotic climes, hence the search for extraordinary hummingbirds. Lord Bryon, like the hummingbird and the Civil War, was also a big influence. Bryon was the Jim Morrison or Kurt Cobain of his day, that is, he lived hard and died young. What I remember most from this book is 13-year-old Harriet Beecher's reaction to Bryon's death,'". . . I laid down among the daisies, and looked up into the blue sky, and thought of that great eternity into which Bryon had entered, and wondered how it might be with his soul.'" I'm going to read more of Harriet Beecher Stowe because of this book.

As in other books about the Dickensons, I don't understand Emily and her sister Lavonia's reaction and even encouragement of their brother Austin's affair with Mabel Loomis Todd. In her own words, Mabel was an egotist, '"What is there in me which so attracts men to me, young and old?"' I have one idea why she was so attractive to men -- can you guess? From her photographs, Mabel looks like she suffered from Grave's disease. What did her husband David think about her relationships? The clue to Emily's nonsupport of Austin's wife Susan is that Emily was having an affair with a married man; however, this just seems to be speculation.

I was struck by Emily Dickenson's poems. These are not the poems I remember; they are much darker.