Amherst

by William Nicholson

Genres: General Fiction; Historical Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Alice Dickinson, a young advertising executive in London, decides to take time off work to research her idea for a screenplay: the true story of the scandalous, adulterous love affair that took place between a young, Amherst college faculty wife, Mabel Loomis Todd, and the college's treasurer, Austin Dickinson, in the 1880s. Austin, twenty-four years Mabel's senior and married, was the brother of the reclusive poet Emily Dickinson, whose house provided the setting for Austin and Mabel's trysts. Alice travels to Amherst, staying in the house of Nick Crocker, a married English academic in his fifties. As Alice researches Austin and Mabel's story and Emily's role in their affair, she embarks on her own affair with Nick, an affair that, of course, they both know echoes the affair that she's writing about in her screenplay.

Release date: February 16, 2016

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Print pages: 304

Sample

Amherst

1

The screen is black. The sound of a pen nib scratching on paper, the sound amplified, echoing in the dark room. A soft light flickers, revealing ink tracking over paper. Follow the forming letters to read:

I’ve none to tell me to but thee

The area of light expands. A small maplewood desk, on which the paper lies. A hand holding the pen.

My hand, my pen, my words. My gift of love, ungiven.

Lay down the pen and cross the room. The light in the room grows. There’s a window on the far side. Outside it’s daylight.

Now the window frames the view. A road, a hedge, a strip of land planted with trees and shrubs. A path runs between the trees to the neighboring house, the Evergreens. A middle-aged man is coming down the path, his head a little bowed.

I know him well, I love him dearly. He is my brother.

Moving faster now, across the bedroom, out onto the landing. To the right is a bright window, to the left, a flight of stairs. Down the stairs, the hem of a white dress brushing the banisters, to come to a stop in the hall. The door to the parlor is ajar.

Pause before the almost closed door. Through the crack a thin slice of the room is visible within: a fire burning in the grate, a wing chair by the fire, the middle-aged man settling himself down with a sigh into the chair.

I know that sigh. I know that he’s unhappy. I know that he leaves his home and comes to my house because he finds no joy in his marriage. I am his refuge.

Open the door, and enter. He raises his bowed head. He has a heavy lined face, a sweep of thick hair above a high forehead, bushy whiskers. He smiles.

“Here I am again,” he says.

Sit down before him, not speaking, waiting for him to speak. After a little while he rises to his feet, paces up and down before the fire. He talks in fits and starts, as if to himself.

“I’ve been remembering Mattie, Mattie Gilbert, Sue’s sister. You liked her, I know. She was the quiet one. She was fond of me, I think. I wrote her a letter, after Sue and I became engaged, but she never answered. Now I wake in the night and think, What if I’d married Mattie?”

He paces in silence for a few moments. Then he comes to a stop and stands before the fire, his eyes cast down.

“I had such great hopes. And what have I left? I have nothing.”

Reach out a hand and touch his arm.

“I call it very unkind of you, brother.”

He smiles at that.

“Am I the unkind one?”

“You think only of yourself. Remember, you’re living for me too.”

“What am I to do?”

“There’s joy to be had in the world,” I say. “You’re to find us joy.”