by Amy Belding Brown
Reviewed by Linda:
This novel provides a lovely way to get to know Emily Dickinson and her family. It is written from the perspective of Margaret Maher, the family’s Irish maid, who came to know everything about “Emily’s House.” Maggie spends thirty years with the Dickinsons, and her days off with her extended Irish family who live nearby. The readers gets to know what life was like for Irish immigrants in Amherst, and what it was like for Maggie to move between these two worlds. We also see what nineteenth-century Amherst was like (“a new store called Hastings just opened downtown”).