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Shop nowMiss Emily
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Learn moreNuala O’Connor’s enchanting American debut novel, Miss Emily, reimagines the private life of Emily Dickinson through her own voice and through the eyes of her family’s Irish maid.
Eighteen-year-old Ada Concannon has just been hired by the respected but eccentric Dickinson family of Amherst, Massachusetts. Despite their difference in age and the upstairs-downstairs divide, Ada strikes up a deep friendship with Miss Emily, the gifted elder daughter living a spinster’s life at home. But Emily’s passion for words begins to dominate her life. She will wear only white and avoids the world outside the Dickinson homestead. When Ada’s safety and reputation are threatened, however, Emily must face down her own demons in order to help her friend—a task with shocking consequences.
Nuala O’Connor is a well-regarded short-story writer and novelist in her native Ireland (writing under the name Nuala Ní Chonchúir). Her short story “Peach” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and her short-story collection Nude was short-listed for the European Union Prize for Literature. She lives in East Galway, Ireland, with her husband and three children.
Tavia Gilbert is an acclaimed narrator of more than four hundred full-cast and multivoice audiobooks for virtually every publisher in the industry. Named the 2018 Voice of Choice by Booklist magazine, she is also winner of the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. She has earned numerous Earphones Awards, a Voice Arts Award, and a Listen-Up Award. Audible.com has named her a Genre-Defining Narrator: Master of Memoir. In addition to voice acting, she is an accomplished producer, singer, and theater actor. She is also a producer, singer, photographer, and a writer, as well as the cofounder of a feminist publishing company, Animal Mineral.
Alana Kerr Collins is an Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator. She is also an actor, puppeteer, and singer who studied at the Impulse Company in London and earned a BA in drama and English at the University of Dublin, Trinity College. She starred in the short films Rachel 9000, The Deal, and Veritas and has appeared in several television series, including Emu and Big City Park.
Reviews
“Evocative, thought provoking, and beautifully rendered…The language was so delicious and exciting that I forced myself to slow down, just enough to savor each sentence.”
“An utterly human and believable Emily Dickinson…Their story is smart and witty and harrowing and brilliantly revelatory…in prose that has the same condensed, particularizing power of Dickinson’s poetry.”
“A beautifully imagined account of an unlikely bond.”
“O’Connor’s lovely novel pulls us in from its first limpid lines and then detonates with an explosion of power—much like Emily Dickinson’s poems. The novel captivates with its high emotions and rich images. Hope, Ada comments, ‘may be small and bald at first, but then it gathers feathers to itself and flies on robust wings.’ So, too, does O’Connor’s quietly soaring novel.”
“O’Connor is a gifted writer; not only does she bring a believable sense of poetry (clay is ‘deathly cool around my fingers’) and self-assurance to Emily, she is also capable of conveying complex feeling succinctly, a talent shared by her historical heroine.”
“Beautifully and convincingly evokes the startling, luminous world captured in Dickinson’s poems in the alternating voices of Emily and Ada, who share a passionate nature at odds with proper Amherst society.”
“Mesmerizing…Like one of Dickinson’s poems, the deceptively simple narrative packs a powerful punch… The dual perspectives add an Upstairs, Downstairs depth to the novel.”
“Narrators Tavia Gilbert and Alana Kerr do an admirable job and are well cast.”
“A superb novel…With gorgeous, compelling period detail and graceful prose, Nuala O’Connor…celebrates her women with great delicacy and exuberance.”
“Beautifully written and utterly compelling, this vivid portrait of Emily Dickinson examines her humanity, complexity, and profound relationship with words…[A] highly accomplished novel.”
“Nuala O’Connor’s beautiful writing sings from every single page as Emily and Ada’s fascinating story unfolds. An absolute joy to read.”
“A jewel of a novel…With its luminous prose and sympathetic, realistically drawn characters, you will feel yourself irresistibly drawn into Emily’s and Ada’s private worlds with every turn of the page.”
“An original portrayal of Emily Dickinson seen here not just as a lover of words but as a heroine and friend to a plucky Irish maid who casts a new and sympathetic light on the Belle of Amherst.”
“Miss Emily presents a version of Emily Dickinson for the twenty-first century: an intensely private and reclusive woman who was as determined to live according to her own idiosyncratic rules.”
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