In his first novel, The Dante Club (2003), Matthew Pearl ventured to the mid-19th century to spin a detective tale set in Boston with a famous historical figure—Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes—as his protagonist. Now, with The Poe Shadow, the novelist is working in the same era, but this time his story's vintage celebrity is dead: Edgar Allan Poe has expired under mysterious circumstances in Baltimore in 1849, and Mr. Pearl's narrator wants to find out why.
The amateur sleuth is a lugubrious chap named Quentin Clark, a lawyer and big-time Poe fan. So devoted, in fact, that Clark is willing to neglect his young marriage and legal obligations to get to the bottom of the writer's death, which he thinks reeks of foul play. (Poe was found in a delirious state, possibly wearing someone else's clothes, and died in a hospital a few days later; speculation about the cause of death has included alcohol poisoning and rabies.)
With no luck turning up clues in Baltimore, Clark heads to Paris, where he tracks down the man reputed to be the real-life model for C. Auguste Dupin, Poe's illustrious French detective, solver of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and other mysteries. This sensible fellow is understandably reluctant to accompany a raving Poe enthusiast back to Baltimore to help solve what may or may not have been a crime.
The historical patina of The Poe Shadow is interesting—it's fascinating to learn, for instance, that in his final days Poe was looking forward to launching a new literary magazine, but that he had also adopted the alias E.S.T. Grey in order to evade unseen enemies.
A Blog to Check Out |
First thought: Why would anyone buy a book of made-up blogs by famous personages, most of whom likely have much more fascinating diaries (or, as in the case of Jesus, benefitted from biographers)? But after getting as far as Gene Roddenberry, I'm won over. Sure, some are cheap jokes that should've been cut—Samuel Morse's in dots and dashes, Buster Keaton's silence, Andy Warhol's play with fonts—but most are actually clever and some even insightful (check the Wright brothers' sibling rivalry), a rare feat in Borders' Humor section.
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Regrettably, Mr. Pearl's prose style is not quite as rewarding as his research. As might be expected of someone who refers to "those who write with flare," he writes without flair. But the larger problem is that Mr. Pearl unwisely attempts to mimic Poe's style. Poe was a master of portent and exaggeration—literary devices that tip easily from effective to excessive. At one point, Clark's partner flings a copy of Poe's tales into a fire and our narrator grabs it back. "Peter blinked," Clark describes, "his helpless eyes large and glinting red with fire as he took in the sight: the sight of his partner gripping a flaming book while the sizzling fire was beginning to engulf his arm. Strangely, the more delirious his expression became, the more tranquil I felt myself become." Strange indeed.
It doesn't help that Clark is such poor company, officious without being humorously so. In an attempt to make him sound both feverish and of the 19th century, Mr. Pearl gives Clark a voice choked by tortured syntax and a wearisome wordiness. ("I sat upon the sofa, thinking whether I had by nature of my present endeavor given up all proper intercourse with society," goes a typical passage, possibly making the reader long for a nap upon that sofa.)
I kept waiting for The Poe Shadow to seize on the kind of primal fear Poe exploited so well—say, of suffocation ("The Premature Burial") or of being caught red-handed ("The Tell-Tale Heart")—and pick up speed. But it doesn't. Without spoiling the ending, it's fair to say that this novel isn't remotely scary. Nor does it make the mind churn as Poe's detective tales did.
What the book does with crushing accuracy is capture the heights of madness and devotion that Poe may have inspired in his time. To best understand why that might be the case, crack open a collection of Poe's own stories and turn to "The Fall of the House of Usher." You won't need to hold a burning copy in your hand to be singed by its brilliance.