A Loaded Gun

A Loaded Gun Synopsis

A passionate and deeply researched reassessment of Emily Dickinson's life and singular legacy in American arts and letters

We think we know Emily Dickinson: the Belle of Amherst, virginal, reclusive, and possibly mad. But in A Loaded Gun, Jerome Charyn introduces us to a different Emily Dickinson: the fierce, brilliant, and sexually charged poet who wrote:

My Life had stood-a Loaded Gun-
…
Though I than He- may longer live
He longer must-than I-
For I have but the power to kill,
Without-the power to die-

Through interviews with contemporary scholars, close readings of Dickinson's correspondence and handwritten manuscripts, and a suggestive, newly discovered photograph that is purported to show Dickinson with her lover, Charyn's literary sleuthing reveals the great poet in ways that have only been hinted at previously: as a woman who was deeply philosophical, intensely engaged with the world, attracted to members of both sexes, and able to write poetry that disturbs and delights us today.