These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson

In her Author's Note, Martha Ackmann tells of her first encounter with Emily Dickinson's poetry in high school English when she read, "After great pain, a formal feeling comes--"* Ackmann said she "woke up" and spent a lifetime trying to understand the poem and its effect on her. It's one of my favorite Dickinson poems.

Sadly, the selections in my high school American Lit textbook did nothing for me. When a college friend said he liked Dickinson, I shuddered.

It was Steve Allen's Meeting of Minds that changed my mind. The 1977 episode paired the poet with Charles Darwin, Atilla the Hun, and Galileo. Emily Dickinson recited, "I cannot live with You--" ending with, "So We must meet apart--/You there--I--here--/With just the Door ajar/That oceans are--and Prayer--/And that White Sustenance, Despair."** I stood up to attention. Wait! This couldn't be Dickinson! This was amazing stuff.

I bought her complete poems and soon became a fan.

Ackmann's These Fevered Days condescends Emily's life into ten moments that give insight into her life and work. Drawing from Emily's letters and poems, photographs and new understandings, she creates a vivid and fresh portrait of the poet.

Readers encounter Emily's strong, original, and independent mind.

She preferred the struggle of doubt over unexamined certainty, unwilling to profess her faith, regardless of social pressure at Mount Holyoke Seminary.

I loved learning that Emily dove into learning to play the piano, which taught her "style", and how she played late into the night, inventing her own "weird and beautiful melodies."

The vision of a girl with dandelions in her hair taught her how "one image could change everything."

We come to understand Emily's ambition, her life-long love affair with words, her dedication to perfecting her art. She strove to understand the impact of words on others, the responsibility of the writer, and how to remain anonymous while sharing her work. She created fascicles, hand sewn booklets of her poems, kept in her maid's room, unknown until revealed her death.

She enjoyed her costly Mount Holyoke education--$60 a year--learning algebra, astronomy, and botany. When other girls hoped to teach or become missionaries, and of course marry and raise a family, Emily had no vocation but poetry. She was summoned back to Amherst and became mired in deadly household duties. She did enjoy bread making.

Duty is black and brown.~Emily Dickinson

Amherst is not portrayed as a back-water safe zone during the Civil War; we see how the war impacted the community, the shared losses, and Emily's deep anxiety.

I had not known about the vision issue that threatened her sight that brought Emily to Boston for treatment.

Emily's friendships are there: Sue, who married Emily's brother, Austin Dickinson; her school friend and fellow author Helen Hunt Jackson; Samuel Bowles who published Emily's poems clandestinely shared with him; Carlo, her beloved dog.

Emily died a spinster, but she loved the special men in her life.

There was the Rev. Charles Wadsworth, the brilliant preacher Emily met in Philadelphia, "my closest earthly friend" she wrote, who one day unexpectedly came to her door.

Emily sent poems to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (who with Mabel Loomis Todd, a family friend and Austin's lover, would publish the first volume of Emily's poetry.) During the Civil War, Col. Higginson lead the first Negro regiment of Union soldiers and when wounded was returned home by Louisa May Alcott. When they finally met, Emily talked and a dazzled Higginson listened.

Other relationships are cloaked in mystery: the secret love between Emily and her father's peer Otis Phillips Lord, and the mysterious Master to whom she wrote unsent letters.

After Emily's early death at age 55, her family discovered her fascicles of nearly 2,000 poems--and the unsent Master letters. Emily had instructed her papers be burned after her death, but her sister Vinnie could not do that.

Emily comes alive through these ten moments, along with her family and friends and her beloved Amherst.

The book is illustrated with photographs of Emily's family, friends, and homes.

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson
by Martha Ackmann
W. W. Norton & Company
Publication: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN 9780393609301
PRICE $26.95 (USD)

The poems:

*After Great Pain- 341

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

The Feet, mechanical, go round –
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought--
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –


**I cannot live with You (640)
Emily Dickinson - 1830-1886

I cannot live with You –
It would be Life –
And Life is over there –
Behind the Shelf

The Sexton keeps the Key to –
Putting up
Our Life – His Porcelain –
Like a Cup –

Discarded of the Housewife –
Quaint – or Broke –
A newer Sevres pleases –
Old Ones crack –

I could not die – with You –
For One must wait
To shut the Other's Gaze down –
You – could not –

And I – Could I stand by
And see You – freeze –
Without my Right of Frost –
Death's privilege?

Nor could I rise – with You –
Because Your Face
Would put out Jesus' –
That New Grace

Glow plain – and foreign
On my homesick Eye –
Except that You than He
Shone closer by –

They'd judge Us – How –
For You – served Heaven – You know,
Or sought to –
I could not –

Because You saturated Sight –
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise

And were You lost, I would be –
Though My Name
Rang loudest
On the Heavenly fame –

And were You – saved –
And I – condemned to be
Where You were not –
That self – were Hell to Me –

So We must meet apart –
You there – I – here –
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are – and Prayer –
And that White Sustenance –
Despair –

News, TBR, WIP

It's been another busy month. 

I have read 27 books so far in 2020. I finished a wall hanging this month and my yellow roses sampler quilt top is ready to be sent to the machine quilter. I finally started on an Emily Dickinson quilt.

The Wednesday Afternoon Book Club at our local library read The Marsh King's Daughter, a psychological suspense story set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Author Karen Dionne lives in Metro Detroit and we were thrilled to have her at our meeting to tell us about the book and her writing.

Before book club, my husband and I took Karen to Frittata, Clawson's wonderful breakfast and brunch restaurant.

We had a great turn out. Karen was an engaging speaker. Our meeting lasted twice as long as usual with a question and answer time and book signing after Karen's talk.

The Marsh King's Daughter has been translated into many languages; some of the foreign editions are shown below.

The next book club pick is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I haven't read it since I was a teenager. 

I was thrilled to get a different kind of 'book mail' when Lenore Riegel, author Jerome Charyn's partner, sent me the DVD My Letter to the World about Emily Dickinson. Charyn is interviewed in the film. More about it later.

Lenore also sent me Charyn's novel Johnny One-Eye set during the American Revolution!

I used a Christmas gift card to purchase the newest book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. I read the introduction to Tightrope at the library and was hooked. The story of Kristof's hometown peers whose lives ended in poverty and tragedy is moving and offers deep insight into the conditions that have created today's political landscape.

A LibraryThing giveaway arrived, Simon The Fiddler by Paulette Jiles. I read her Stormy Weather some years ago and have News of the World on my Kindle TBR pile.

Currently Reading:

• Coming to Age: Growing Older with Poetry by Mary Ann Hoberman and Carolyn Hopley; the poems are hitting me in a personal way
• A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth: Stories by Daniel Mason whose novel The Winter Soldier I enjoyed
• Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars by Francesca Wade about the London square once home to poet H. D., detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, classicist Jane Harrison, economic historian Eileen Power, and author and publisher Virginia Woolf 
• The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
• The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson by Jerome Charyn

Books on my review shelf include:

• Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles
• Country by Michael Hughes
• The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
• Night. Sleep. Death. by Joyce Carol Oates
• How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue whose debut novel Behold the Dreamers I read
• The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts
• Bronte's Mistress by Finola Austin about Branwell Bronte
• American Follies by Norman Lock from his American Novel series which I have enjoyed (The Wreckage of Eden, The Feast Day of the Cannibals, A Boy in His Winter)

I made this wall hanging from Gingiber's Thicket prints for my son.

My husband celebrated his 70th birthday in February. His older brother gifted him a Charlie Harper signed print. It's been traveling through the family as another brother first owned it!

And just for fun, here is my intrepid brother with a new friend.

Shades of Karen Dionne's upcoming psychological suspense novel, The Wicked Sister! Bears are an important theme in the novel.

The Girl in White Gloves by Keri Maher: A Novel of Grace Kelley

I am a life-long lover of classic films.

It started when I was a girl watching old movies on our black and white television. In those days, I preferred Gene Autry, Andy Hardy, and Ma and Pa Kettle. When we moved to Detroit I discovered Bill Kennedy's Showtime. I was hooked all summer long. Jimmy Stewart became my favorite actor, but I watched swashbucklers, too.

My folks didn't have money to take us to movie theaters but we did go to the drive-in theater. When the sun went down, I was supposed to fall asleep on the back seat. Instead, I was riveted to the movie. The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Birds, and Marnie were some of the most memorable.

I became a Hitchcock fan, watching his television series, and I even had a book of scary stories with Hitch on the cover. Later in life, I watched every television broadcast of his movies. And that is how I first saw Grace Kelley--in Rear Window and To Catch a Thief.

My husband's favorite movie is High Noon, starring Kelley in her first movie role. And he was a Clark Gable fan back in the day, so I saw Kelley in Mogambo.

It was not until a few years ago that I saw Kelley in her Oscar-winning performance in The Country Girl. There was this beautiful, young actress made up plain and dowdy, her emotion so concentrated I could see the flames shooting from her eyes. Wowzer! This was not the elegant model offering Cary Grant a chance to handle her jewels.

I knew that Kelley was from Philadelphia. We had driven on Kelley Drive. And I knew that Kelley had died in a tragic car accident of unknown origin. And that she had married a prince and had two beautiful daughters who were sometimes the news.

That's it, folks. That was all I knew. And what better way to learn more than by reading Wikipedia and IMBD---kidding. What better way to learn more than by reading a historical fiction novel that imagines the hidden stories?

Several times I skipped over The Girl in White Gloves (PLEASE--no more 'girl' titles, people!) by Keri Maher when I saw it on NetGalley, but each time it caught my attention. I try hard to keep my requests in line as I am committed to doing justice to every title I get. I caved--what's one more book to the pile?

In the first chapter, I learned that Kelley had been offered the title role in Hitchcock's Marnie and was unable to accept! MARNIE! The movie that I watched from the back seat of the car, that disturbed me and made me return to it again and again to 'get it'. I read Winston Graham's Marnie a few years back after a chance to see the movie at a local repertoire theater when Tippi Hendron visited and told the audience about the movie. How could a princess accept a role about a troubled woman leading a double life, with a hatred of men and a penchant for theft? Who was made love to by a young Sean Connery?

Okay. That was enough to keep me turning pages.

In a few chapters, I learned that Kelley had played Tracy Lord in a musical remake of The Philadelphia Story! One of my very favorite movies! How did I get to be in my sixth decade without having seen High Society? Arrggh!

At the end of the story, I learned that at age forty-seven, Kelley became involved with poetry festivals, reciting poems! Including Maya Angelou.

I might also mention that Kelley was a knitter.

Maher admits to a dearth of sources for critical times in Kelley's life, like her long correspondence with Prince Rainier after their first meeting in Monaco. She 'took many liberties' for 'dramatic compression', which translates to providing a 'good read', and she speculates on the details of her relationships with men, her family, and the cause of her death. Hey, it's fiction. Get over it.

The story hits on all of the major events and films of Kelley's career. It also portrays Kelley as a woman driven to achieve excellence but conflicted by parental expectations that a woman's goal is to marry and bear children. You've had a bit of freedom, played make-believe, now it's time to grow up and become a responsible adult as a real June Cleaver, supporting your husband and bearing his children. Well, that role did not suit Kelley; Maher takes us into the marriage bed and it was positively Arctic.

Well, I gave up wanting to be a princess before I was five years old. Between Kelley and Princesses Diana and Sarah, it is quite clear the downsides far outweigh the perks.

I read a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Girl in White Gloves: A NOVEL OF GRACE KELLY
By KERRI MAHER
Feb 25, 2020
ISBN 9780451492074

Phantoms by Christian Kiefer

Gorgeous writing, foreshadowing that draws the reader to turn pages, wonderful characters, and an exploration of deeply American themes propelled me to read

Phantoms  by Christian Kiefer in two sittings.

John Frazier returns from Vietnam a shattered man. He moves in with his grandmother and takes a job pumping gas. He becomes involved with two formidable women whose husbands were once best friends--a confidence man, becoming the bearer of the secrets of their entwined family histories dating to the 1940s.

Aunt Evelyn Wilson's husband ran an orchard. Kimiko Takahashi was a Japanese picture bride. Their husband worked together, friends over their shared love of the orchard. Their children grew up together.

The ugliness of racism underlies the story of star-crossed lovers separated by WWII and the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese Removal Act, a story that ends in tragedy.

They would love each other. In secrecy and in silence. And then all of it would blown away, not only because of history but because of their very lives, adrift as they were in the swirling spinning sea between one continent and another.~ from Phantoms by Christian Kiefer

John has struggled for years to contain his experiences through his writing. His early promise as a 'war writer' has not been fulfilled. It is time to tell this other story, Ray Takahashi's story.

If the kind of experiences I had in Vietnam have already become a tired American myth, over told, overanalyzed, then perhaps this is a good enough reason to justify what I am trying to do in these pages, returning to the 1969 of my memory not to write about Vietnam at long last but instead to narrate the story of someone I did not know but whose time in Place County has come to feel inextricably tied to my own. ~from Phantom by Christian Kiefer

I love the language of this book. John notes that he had read Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe twice,"its sentences consuming me. O Lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again," and was reading it again after the war. I believe I have read it four times! I discovered Wolfe at sixteen in 1969, and fell in love with his language.

This grim story also is a celebration of life. The ending is a beautiful affirmation that brought strong emotions and a catch in my throat.

There are days--many of them--when golden light seems to pour forth from the very soil.~from Phantoms by Christian Kiefer

I purchased an ebook.

Phantoms
by Christian Kiefer
Liveright
ISBN: 978-0-87140-481-7
$26.95 hard cover; $14.55 Kindle
published April, 2019

from the publisher:
In the panoramic tradition of Charles Frazier’s fiction, Phantoms is a fierce saga of American culpability. A Vietnam vet still reeling from war, John Frazier finds himself an unwitting witness to a confrontation, decades in the making, between two steely matriarchs: his aunt, Evelyn Wilson, and her former neighbor, Kimiko Takahashi. John comes to learn that in the onslaught of World War II, the Takahashis had been displaced as once-beloved tenants of the Wilson orchard and sent to an internment camp. One question has always plagued both families: What happened to the Takahashi son, Ray, when he returned from service and found that Placer County was no longer home—that nowhere was home for a Japanese American? As layers of family secrets unravel, the harrowing truth forces John to examine his own guilt.

In prose recalling Thomas Wolfe, Phantoms is a stunning exploration of the ghosts of American exceptionalism that haunt us today.

Pancakes Aplenty, a Vintage Cook Book Written by a Murdered Food Critic

I love vintage finds at a library book sale. This winter I came home with Pancakes Aplenty published in 1962. The illustrations alone are worth the 50 cents I paid! I do love Mid-Century illustrative art!

For those planning on a pancake dinner for Fat Tuesday, here are some recipes to consider. Author Ruth Ellen Church reminds us that pancakes freeze well and can be reheated in the oven or on a griddle; using a toaster makes them tougher.

Don't worry about lumps--"most pancakes are lighter and more tender if they aren't mixed too well." Also, don't fry them but use a lightly greased griddle. Heat the griddle until a drop of water sizzles. Flip the cake when bubbles form but before they burst.

You can create shaped pancakes, even adding blueberries or raisins for eyes.

The recipes are drawn from across time and continents and include some I have never heard of. They use sweet-potatoes and squash, chocolate and carrots,  orange juice and eggnog.

Old-Fashioned Batty Cakes have no flour and are recommended as an accompaniment for fried chicken! 4 servings

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1/2 tsp soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 well-beaten egg
• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk

Mix the dry ingredients. Add egg and buttermilk and beat until smooth. Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased skillet and bake until brown, turning once.

Another corn-based pancake is Fluffy Corn Cakes which used cream-style corn. For 5-6 servings.

• 2 cups flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 well-beaten eggs
• 1 lb cane of cream-style corn
• 2 cups milk
• 1/4 cup melted butter

Combine dry ingredients. Combine eggs, corn, milk, and butter. Stir into the dry ingredients, mixing lightly. Bake on a lightly greased griddle until golden brown, turning once. Serve with maple syrup or with quick chicken filling.

Quick Chicken Filling

• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 1/2 soup-can of milk
• 1 can (5 oz) of boned chicken
• 1 tablespoon chopped pimento

Dilute soup with milk and add chicken and pimento. Heat. Fill and top 8 pancakes. Add 2 tablespoons of toasted slivered almonds if desired. Tuna or ham may be substituted for chicken.

Some recipes are quite strange!

Onion-Pimento Pancakes with Cheese Sauce
5 servings
These red-and-green speckled cakes are easily prepared for brunch, lunch, or supper when you are in a hurry. Add a green salad and brown-and-serve sausages to the meal.

• 2 cups pancake mix
• 2 cups milk
• 2 tablespoons chopped onion
• 2 tablespoons chopped pimento
• 2 tablespoons chopped green pepper

Add milk to mix and stir lightly. Fold in onion, pimento, and green pepper. Pour 1/4 cup batter for each pancake onto hot, lightly greased griddle. Bake until golden brown, turning once.

Cheese Sauce

• 1/2 pound processed cheese
• 1 cup milk

Cut cheese into pieces. Heat with milk over boiling water, stirring, until cheese melts. Serve over pancakes.

Mom made Potato Pancakes served with "heat and serve" sausage and applesauce. Church suggests also serving them with sour cream or gooseberry sauce. Mom soaked the grated potatoes in cold water to remove the starch.

• 2 cups grated raw potatoes
• 1/3 c milk
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper

Stir grated potatoes into milk, add remaining ingredients and mix. Drop onto buttered frying skillet and cook slowly until well browned and crisp on both sides.

Gingerbread Pancakes

• 7-9 servings  Bake on a moderately heated griddle and turn carefully.
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 cup  molasses
• 1 well-beaten egg
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup oil or butter

Stir dry ingredients; combine liquids. Blend until smooth. Bake on very lightly oiled griddle at moderate heat, turning carefully when browned underneath. Serve hot with applesauce and whipped cream. 

Quick Calas (Rice Cake) These cakes are especially nice for Sunday morning breakfast served with jam or syrup or pineapple sauce.

• 2 cups cooked rice
• 3 well-beaten eggs
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 6 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons baking powder

Mix rice, eggs, vanilla, and nutmeg. Add sifted dry ingredients and mix. Bake on lightly greased hot griddle.

Pineapple Sauce

• 1 9-oz can crushed pineapple
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water

Mix and simmer 10 minutes.

 Tortillas are just another kind of 'pancake.'

This book includes waffle recipes.

 And French toast, yeast pancakes, and fritter recipes.

Ham Fritters with Bananas
4-6 servings

• 2 cups ground cooked ham
• 2 beaten eggs
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 tablespoon chopped onion
• 4 small bananas peeled and halved
• lemon juice 
• flour

Add ham to eggs with flour, milk, and onion. Add salt and pepper if the ham is bland. Drop into deep got fat at 365 degrees. Coo, 3-5 minutes until done. Dip bananas in lemon and coat with flour. Fry in the kettle until brown.

 Another section offers recipes for Omelets.

French Omelet
one serving

• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons milk or water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper

Mix eggs, milk, salt and pepper with a fork. Avoid foaminess. Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a 7- or 8-inch omelet pan or skillet, rotate pan to coat well, and pour off the excess. The pan just be just hot enough to make a drop of water sizzle.

Pour in the egg mixture and reduce heat. As the eggs begin to thicken at edges, draw the cooked portions toward the center with a fork so that the uncooked portion flow to the bottom. Tilt pan as necessary to hasten the flow of uncooked eggs. Do not stir and keep the mixture as level as possible. Shake skillet occasionally to keep from sticking. When eggs no longer flow and the surface is still moist, increase heat to brown bottom quilting. Loosen edge, roll with a fork onto a serving plate. Cooking time should be about 5 minutes.

Other omelet recipes incorporate codfish, potato and bacon, shrimp, and cooked noddles!

The last section of the cookbook gives recipes for butters, 'sirups', sauces, and fillings. Sauces with rum, avocado, and even white grapes are included!

WHO WAS RUTH ELLEN CHURCH? Check in next Saturday and learn about her career as Mary Meade and her tragic murder!

American Romantic by Ward Just

Harry had killed a man and it set him apart.~from American Romantic by Ward Just

Another TBR shelf book that was waiting for its time was Ward Just's American Romantic. The passing of the author spurred me to take it down to read. My first acquaintance with Just was his Pulitizer Prize-nominated novel An Unfinished Season. I have been a fan ever since.

Just was a war correspondent in Vietnam; his novels explore the disenchantment of individuals who discover the failings of Washington D.C. politics.

The novels are beautifully written, focusing on the internal growth of the characters, not page-turners with gripping plotlines. My favorite kind of novel!

American Romantic begins with Harry's life-altering experiences in Vietnam and his brief love affair with a German ex-pat nurse. Harry's career takes him across the world as an ambassador. He marries a woman who isn't up to the role of ambassador's wife. His war wounds are constant reminders of his time in Vietnam and the boy soldier he killed. He grows old in a foreign land that is less foreign to him now than America and his Connecticut home. But the lessons garnered at his wealthy father's dinner table, with political guests conversing on Washington D.C. news while sidestepping things that can't be spoken remain the most lasting.

After I read a book I do look at reviews. You can read an excellent review by Jonathan Yardley in the Washington Post here.

Favorite quotes from American Romantic:

We live in a turnstile of lies.

Americans are romantic, she said.
I would not say romantic. I would say optimistic. ..
...They take pride in their makeovers, a nation of actors, or should I say playwrights, each examining her own story. That's the myth, anyhow. A nation in an eternal state of rewrite.

What have you learned, Harry?... What have the years taught you?
At my father's table failure was more instructive, more revealing than success.
...all the stories they told had something missing...To go beyond that certain point might have--would have--undermined faith in the system....they were deep in their memories, pondering what they were unable--not unwilling but unable--to say aloud. The missing piece.

And do you want to know something else? The stakes are not small. This world is filled with mischief, and more than mischief. Time retreats. Time advances. Time is discontinuous. Time is always in motion, like the waves of a great sea. And failure is more commanding than success.

He had the idea that there were rules somewhere and that if you followed the rules things would come out all right...And without warning your world turned upside down. No logic to it.

The Holdout by Graham Moore

"When the villains are so clear, we can tuck ourselves into bed at night knowing that we're nothing like them. But what if it's not so clear?"~from The Holdout by Graham Moore

The jury from a notorious murder trial is brought together by a reality television show. The trial of a black teacher accused of murdering his white teenage student looked like a sure verdict until Maya channeled 12 Angry Men to turn the guilty votes to not guilty. The experience motivated Maya to become a lawyer.

Jury member Rick, one of the few black jurists, spent the last ten years trying to prove Maya was wrong and that they had let the murderer of a teenage girl go free. He claims to have proof. During the sequester of the jury, he and Maya conducted a secret love affair before their differing verdicts drove them apart.

At the reunion, Maya and Rick talk for the first time since the trial. Then, Rick is found dead and Maya is accused of his murder. Maya now must prove her innocence.

Readers learn the backstories of the jurors while Maya uncovers startling evidence that leads the jurors to reconvene, consider the facts, and cast their votes once again.

Graham Moore's courtroom drama The Holdout is entertaining with a convoluted resolution.

Moore's previous novel was The Last Days of Night and he authored the award-winning script The Imitation Game.

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Holdout
by Graham Moore
Random House Publishing Group - Random House
Pub Date 18 Feb 2020
ISBN 9780399591778
PRICE $28.00 (USD)