Review: Plenty of surprises found in Ohio author's book on Edgar Allan Poe
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Edgar Allan Poe has maintained a hold on the American imagination since he first penned a series of mystery and horror stories in the mid-19th century, along with some equally haunting poems.
Just last year, Louis Bayard released a mystery novel, "The Pale Blue Eye," which includes Poe as a critical character. A film adaptation of the book, starring Christian Bale, was released on Netflix.
Poe's brief life, and a relatively sudden death that took place under mysterious circumstances, are almost as fascinating as his writings.
Mark Dawidziak, a former television and film critic for the Akron Beacon-Journal and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, takes up the subject of that life in his engaging new biography of the writer, "A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe" (St. Martin's Press, $28.99, 288 pages).
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Dawidziak also is an author of horror novels and studies of Mark Twain.
While Poe biography doesn't break much new ground, it briskly sweeps away many of the myths that have grown up around Poe, revealing him to have been at various stages in his life an athletic and popular young man; a poet with a perfectionist streak; and a sharp-witted critic whose words provoked many a literary feud. He also was a master of Gothic horror fiction and the creator, with stories like “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” of contemporary detective fiction.
Dawidziak structures the book in chapters that alternate between a close study of the months leading up to Poe's death at 40 in Baltimore in 1849, and those narrating a more typical biography.
The more conventional chapters, starting with those depicting the brief lives of his parents – both actors who died of tuberculosis – offer vivid and intriguing glimpses both of Poe and of the many people who crossed his path. There are the foster parents who never quite bonded with him, his teenaged wife, and the mother-in-law who became a surrogate mother to him even after her daughter died.
Poe also engaged with fellow writers and critics, with whom he would inevitably strike up lifelong arguments – once narrowly avoiding a duel – and courted several women after his wife died.
The pre-mortem chapters delve deeply into just what was going on in Poe's mind and body in the period before he died. Asking questions, and not settling for easy answers, Dawidziak examines what little evidence is left behind of the weeks before the author's death. There were upsetting visits to several of his friends; a few lost days before he was found outside a polling station in Baltimore; and a stay in a hospital. His death was recorded by a physician whose remarks on the matter have been viewed with suspicion.
Throughout the book, Dawidziak makes good use of interviews with authorities on Poe, both academic writers and the curators of various museums dedicated to Poe.
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Their various points of view, expressed with conversational verve and, often, a touch of humor, add insight into Poe's life and world, and reveal some of the many ways in which the writer can be perceived, rather than limiting the biography to one channeled vision.
Dawidziak also takes advantage of the many interviews he has done with writers and filmmakers over the years, passing on the insights of those inspired by Poe, including Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Wes Craven, Anne Rice and Vincent Price.
Several pages of photos show Poe at various stages in his life, and act as a corrective to the gaunt and haunted portraits of the author familiar to most readers. Other images show his mother, his wife Virginia and many of his friends and literary enemies.
Even those familiar with Poe's story will find plenty of surprises here, while those who know him only by reputation will get a better-rounded view of a man who was far more than an author of a few scary stories.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe review
