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The Poe Papers: a tale of passion
"A macabre, terrifying thriller."- Library Journal "A nightmare of sex, murder, and madness."- Kirkus Reviews "Told with great power. . . . A stunning achievement."- The Boston Globe "Nancy Zaroulis has a fierce sense of history. . . . A magnificent storyteller."- The Plain Dealer "Fascinating. . . . It would be interesting to see what Alfred Hitchcock would do with this material."- Publishers Weekly A woman with a secret of adulterous love in her past and a still-ravenous desire burning within her; a daughter who had grown to be her mother's rival in voluptuous beauty and rapacious lust; and the young man who comes to their old New England mansion on a scholar's visit-and is willing to do anything in exchange for the forbidden secret they possess-stays to be seduced body and soul. Nancy Zaroulis is the author of five novels, as well as three Beacon Hill Mysteries, published under the pseudonym Cynthia Peale. Her sole nonfiction work, Who Spoke Up? , a history of the anti-Vietnam War movement, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She lives with her family in Massachusetts. Visit Zaroulis at www.thepoepapers.com.
240 pages, Paperback
First published December 4, 1980
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23 people want to read
About the author
Nancy Zaroulis
14 books22 followersNancy Zaroulis aka Cynthia Peale writes fiction and nonfiction. In her spare time she enjoys photography, museums, a good movie, knitting, and cooking. Not a sports fan, but keep your eye on that 8-year-old chess champ (in 2019) in New York!
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 22, 2020
Synopsis:
A young man, obsessed with the writings of Edgar Alan Poe journeys to visit an old lover of the writer, to whom dedications had been made, and who was believed to have secret love letters. He charms his way into the lives of the woman and her daughter and lives with them. Slowly their relationship becomes more sinister and twisted until he starts to go mad, and the story ends with him discovering he has been used by both women for different purposes. Finally he is framed for the murder of the older woman and is taken to prison and he is already mad and a victim of the same guilt as the in Poe’s Raven.
What was good about it:
The story is really enjoyable, and I devoured the first 90 pages in one sitting. The style is quite old fashioned however it flows beautifully; there is no doubt about the author’s skill. The story was creepy enough to be captivating, and I imagine this sort of writing to be Poe’s skill also. I haven’t read any Poe, but now feel that I might. This story was really twisted.
What didn’t I enjoy about it:
It sort of lost its lustre about 2/3rd s of the way through. I was imagining all sorts of other twisted scenarios that could have happened which might have made it a bit more scandalous. There is a certain amount of knowledge of Poe and his writings and his world that may have been handy to have understood, though this wasn’t entirely necessary. It was pretty clear which passages related to the losing of his mind.
A young man, obsessed with the writings of Edgar Alan Poe journeys to visit an old lover of the writer, to whom dedications had been made, and who was believed to have secret love letters. He charms his way into the lives of the woman and her daughter and lives with them. Slowly their relationship becomes more sinister and twisted until he starts to go mad, and the story ends with him discovering he has been used by both women for different purposes. Finally he is framed for the murder of the older woman and is taken to prison and he is already mad and a victim of the same guilt as the in Poe’s Raven.
What was good about it:
The story is really enjoyable, and I devoured the first 90 pages in one sitting. The style is quite old fashioned however it flows beautifully; there is no doubt about the author’s skill. The story was creepy enough to be captivating, and I imagine this sort of writing to be Poe’s skill also. I haven’t read any Poe, but now feel that I might. This story was really twisted.
What didn’t I enjoy about it:
It sort of lost its lustre about 2/3rd s of the way through. I was imagining all sorts of other twisted scenarios that could have happened which might have made it a bit more scandalous. There is a certain amount of knowledge of Poe and his writings and his world that may have been handy to have understood, though this wasn’t entirely necessary. It was pretty clear which passages related to the losing of his mind.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 6, 2010
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Push it too far, however, and it comes across as disingenuous and awkward. I fear that author Nancy Zaroulis did indeed push things too far in this Poe-based and exceedingly Poe-inspired story, ultimately squandering what begins as a pretty good read. Of course, the subject material itself is rife with potential. The long-lost love letters from Edgar Allen Poe to Annie Richmond make for quite the literary and historical treasure. History tells us that the inspiration for Poe's poem "For Annie" destroyed Poe's letters some time before her death in 1898, having rebuffed all those who sought the opportunity to examine the letters over the decades following Poe's own death in 1849. This novel presents the first-person story of one young, desperate Poe fan who manages to insinuate himself into Annie's world during her final months - and gets much more (and less) than he ever bargained for.
Zaroulis adopts a very Victorian style of writing to return the reader to the days of the late nineteenth century and, more importantly, to put readers in mind of the literary milieu of Poe himself. As such, the story is presented in the first-person perspective of the anonymous narrator, whose obsession with Poe - and the great writer's love letters to Annie Richmond in particular - is almost dangerously zealous from the start. He first approaches Annie through subterfuge, representing himself as a member of the Boston Art Club writing a monograph on painter Henry Claypool Hough, an artist whom Richmond had helped during his early years. Distraught over his failure to win an audience with this devious ruse, he boldly tries again and manages to speak to Richmond's daughter Lenore. Lenore is an austere and mysteriously complex woman, but her obvious resentment of her mother's hold on her leads her to assist the narrator to a certain degree (although her actions are not always in the narrator's favor).
Thanks to a heavy blizzard, the women of the house call upon the narrator to remain with them until the weather clears. This proves to be just the beginning of an extended stay, however, one that takes on darkly stranger proportions with each passing day. Roles are reversed as both women attempt to use the narrator for their own personal interest and amusement. It is actually rather pathetic to watch this gentleman deteriorate into something less of a man at the bequest of these cold and calculating women. He demeans himself for one reason only, though - he is steadfast in his determination to find and claim Poe's letters for himself. He will stop at nothing to get what he wants, and that sets the stage for a dramatic conclusion.
It is difficult to voice my criticism of the novel without divulging pivotal plot points. What I will say is that Zaroulis seemingly falls prey to her own obsession with Poe in the end. In the final chapters, she attempts to emulate Poe's writing herself, suddenly abandoning her previously careful approach to the story. Needless to say, there is only one Edgar Allen Poe, and Zaroulis' attempts to emulate his style and unique approach to storytelling come across - in my opinion - as weak and forced. It left a bad taste in my mouth and significantly detracted from my appreciation of the novel. Other readers may not share my feelings about the ending, however, so I certainly don't want to steer any potential readers away. As I said, the premise of The Poe Papers makes for a powerful literary hook, and I still consider it a very interesting read.
Zaroulis adopts a very Victorian style of writing to return the reader to the days of the late nineteenth century and, more importantly, to put readers in mind of the literary milieu of Poe himself. As such, the story is presented in the first-person perspective of the anonymous narrator, whose obsession with Poe - and the great writer's love letters to Annie Richmond in particular - is almost dangerously zealous from the start. He first approaches Annie through subterfuge, representing himself as a member of the Boston Art Club writing a monograph on painter Henry Claypool Hough, an artist whom Richmond had helped during his early years. Distraught over his failure to win an audience with this devious ruse, he boldly tries again and manages to speak to Richmond's daughter Lenore. Lenore is an austere and mysteriously complex woman, but her obvious resentment of her mother's hold on her leads her to assist the narrator to a certain degree (although her actions are not always in the narrator's favor).
Thanks to a heavy blizzard, the women of the house call upon the narrator to remain with them until the weather clears. This proves to be just the beginning of an extended stay, however, one that takes on darkly stranger proportions with each passing day. Roles are reversed as both women attempt to use the narrator for their own personal interest and amusement. It is actually rather pathetic to watch this gentleman deteriorate into something less of a man at the bequest of these cold and calculating women. He demeans himself for one reason only, though - he is steadfast in his determination to find and claim Poe's letters for himself. He will stop at nothing to get what he wants, and that sets the stage for a dramatic conclusion.
It is difficult to voice my criticism of the novel without divulging pivotal plot points. What I will say is that Zaroulis seemingly falls prey to her own obsession with Poe in the end. In the final chapters, she attempts to emulate Poe's writing herself, suddenly abandoning her previously careful approach to the story. Needless to say, there is only one Edgar Allen Poe, and Zaroulis' attempts to emulate his style and unique approach to storytelling come across - in my opinion - as weak and forced. It left a bad taste in my mouth and significantly detracted from my appreciation of the novel. Other readers may not share my feelings about the ending, however, so I certainly don't want to steer any potential readers away. As I said, the premise of The Poe Papers makes for a powerful literary hook, and I still consider it a very interesting read.
September 3, 2019
Splendid; a diabolical delight
With the deceptive simplicity of art that is really art, Nancy Zaroulis has constructed a tale involving Edgar Allan Poe (whose name is curiously never mentioned) and his beloved "Annie"--Mrs. Charles Richmond--along with her daughter, who is named Lenore. The year is 1895. It is 46 years after Poe's death. The place is Lowell, Massachusetts. The narrator of the tale is a relatively young man, a connoisseur of the arts, both pictorial and literary, who sets out to visit a now elderly and secluded Mrs. Richmond with the idea of convincing her to allow him to peruse, publish, and possibly acquire "The Poe Papers" that he believes she has in her possession. His name too is never mentioned. Indeed he is an Edgar Allan Poe doppelganger of sorts somehow brought forward in time through supernatural fate.
He is an obsessed and a compromised narrator, somewhat in the manner of some of Poe's compromised narrators--Montresor in "The Cask Of Amontillado" comes to mind; indeed Montresor is mentioned on page 246. Zaroulis's protagonist also reminds me a bit of Humbert Humbert from Nabokov's Lolita in that he inadvertently reveals his not entirely sterling character as he narrates the story. In the present case we see early on by his almost savage dismissal of a poor beggar girl, and later by his employment of various machinations and dishonesties in his effort to gain the confidence of the widow Mrs. Richmond and her daughter (the "lost Lenore"?), that he is a morally challenged man. Somehow, however, with deftness of intent and mastery of characterization and plot, Zaroulis manages--as did Poe and Nabokov--to persuade the reader to identify with and find some sympathy for the obsessed and eventually weak-willed "unreliable narrator."
Zaroulis's technique may owe something to Henry James as well as to Poe. Her use of a quotation from the preface to James's "The Aspern Papers" suggests as much. Her careful foreshadowing of events so as to make them seem natural, almost inevitable, recalls the literary artistry of earlier times. Witness the unfortunate man who had come to Lowell previously seeking the Poe papers. We can guess at what he foreshadows. Witness the hellish artistry of Lenore so that we are given a glimpse of her character before we see her actions, allowing them to make reasonable literary sense. Witness the cat who scratches the protagonist. What can this foreshadow?
The period piece feel of New England in the late 19th century created by Zarouli seemed to me to be fully authentic; but even more authentic is the feel of the late 19th, early 20th century novel that she has created. Indeed I was in some manner reminded of Henry James's friend, Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome written a few years after the time of this novel with a similar setting. The Poe Papers combines easy reading with a certain understated elegance of style that I found myself admiring. Zaroulis knows well the old saying that easy writing makes for hard reading and vice-versa. She has her narrator spell it out for us: "Anyone who has ever tried to compose anything, no matter how trivial, will understand when I say that four or five hours at such work will leave one exhausted. Drawing out a story from one's mind as the spider draws the web from her body--spinning a tale--is the hardest work in the world." (pp. 148-149)
In a sense then this is a nineteenth century novel written in the twenty-first. The story itself is pure Edgar Allan Poe. It is a story of diabolical intent, so long that it a short novel. Undoubtedly part of what Zaroulis wanted to achieve was a novel in the manner and style of Poe. (I don't believe Poe ever wrote anything that could rightly be called a novel.) In this intent she has succeeded wonderfully. "The Poe Papers" is in frank imitation of Poe's macabre short stories especially in terms of form and content. Everything is artfully contrived to lead the reader to experience a catharsis through identification with the protagonist, a catharsis born of sin and guilt motivated by greed ending in something very...Poe-like. Yet there is no sense of "stretching" as is sometimes the case when a short story is made into a novel or novella. Zaroulis's patient, careful buildup only heightens our anticipation and provides us with the proper grounding for what is to follow. And when the denouement comes, it comes swiftly, and then the unraveling is quickened to what used to be called "the end." Ironically enough, the novel ends with a full colon and then some white pages.
Some quibbles: I was not able to see why Mrs. Richmond's daughter should be named Lenore. There is nothing in Poe's poem by that name that I could find that fits the character in this novel. Perhaps she is ironically named. However the "Annie" presented here is completely consistent with the character lauded in Poe's poem, "For Annie." However, Zaroulis's use of her likeness, as it were, is sinister and ironic. I was also a little dissatisfied that Zaroulis did not further develop the (strange!) sexual relationship between Lenore and the narrator. I kept imagining how Hollywood would do it in a movie. Still, Zaroulis's treatment--with one brief exception on page 158--is in keeping with the Victorian style in such matters, and of course Poe's tales were without overt sexuality. Finally, I wish Zaroulis would have cleaned up the vomit before that scene was played out! I kept smelling it and imagined that such an odor would dampen any enthusiasm.
In conclusion let me give the quote from Henry James mentioned above since it is Zaroulis's thematic touchstone for the novel and part of the psyche of her protagonist: "The historian, essentially, wants more documents than he can really use; the dramatist only wants more liberties than he can really take."
--Dennis Littrell, author of “Novels and Other Fictions”
With the deceptive simplicity of art that is really art, Nancy Zaroulis has constructed a tale involving Edgar Allan Poe (whose name is curiously never mentioned) and his beloved "Annie"--Mrs. Charles Richmond--along with her daughter, who is named Lenore. The year is 1895. It is 46 years after Poe's death. The place is Lowell, Massachusetts. The narrator of the tale is a relatively young man, a connoisseur of the arts, both pictorial and literary, who sets out to visit a now elderly and secluded Mrs. Richmond with the idea of convincing her to allow him to peruse, publish, and possibly acquire "The Poe Papers" that he believes she has in her possession. His name too is never mentioned. Indeed he is an Edgar Allan Poe doppelganger of sorts somehow brought forward in time through supernatural fate.
He is an obsessed and a compromised narrator, somewhat in the manner of some of Poe's compromised narrators--Montresor in "The Cask Of Amontillado" comes to mind; indeed Montresor is mentioned on page 246. Zaroulis's protagonist also reminds me a bit of Humbert Humbert from Nabokov's Lolita in that he inadvertently reveals his not entirely sterling character as he narrates the story. In the present case we see early on by his almost savage dismissal of a poor beggar girl, and later by his employment of various machinations and dishonesties in his effort to gain the confidence of the widow Mrs. Richmond and her daughter (the "lost Lenore"?), that he is a morally challenged man. Somehow, however, with deftness of intent and mastery of characterization and plot, Zaroulis manages--as did Poe and Nabokov--to persuade the reader to identify with and find some sympathy for the obsessed and eventually weak-willed "unreliable narrator."
Zaroulis's technique may owe something to Henry James as well as to Poe. Her use of a quotation from the preface to James's "The Aspern Papers" suggests as much. Her careful foreshadowing of events so as to make them seem natural, almost inevitable, recalls the literary artistry of earlier times. Witness the unfortunate man who had come to Lowell previously seeking the Poe papers. We can guess at what he foreshadows. Witness the hellish artistry of Lenore so that we are given a glimpse of her character before we see her actions, allowing them to make reasonable literary sense. Witness the cat who scratches the protagonist. What can this foreshadow?
The period piece feel of New England in the late 19th century created by Zarouli seemed to me to be fully authentic; but even more authentic is the feel of the late 19th, early 20th century novel that she has created. Indeed I was in some manner reminded of Henry James's friend, Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome written a few years after the time of this novel with a similar setting. The Poe Papers combines easy reading with a certain understated elegance of style that I found myself admiring. Zaroulis knows well the old saying that easy writing makes for hard reading and vice-versa. She has her narrator spell it out for us: "Anyone who has ever tried to compose anything, no matter how trivial, will understand when I say that four or five hours at such work will leave one exhausted. Drawing out a story from one's mind as the spider draws the web from her body--spinning a tale--is the hardest work in the world." (pp. 148-149)
In a sense then this is a nineteenth century novel written in the twenty-first. The story itself is pure Edgar Allan Poe. It is a story of diabolical intent, so long that it a short novel. Undoubtedly part of what Zaroulis wanted to achieve was a novel in the manner and style of Poe. (I don't believe Poe ever wrote anything that could rightly be called a novel.) In this intent she has succeeded wonderfully. "The Poe Papers" is in frank imitation of Poe's macabre short stories especially in terms of form and content. Everything is artfully contrived to lead the reader to experience a catharsis through identification with the protagonist, a catharsis born of sin and guilt motivated by greed ending in something very...Poe-like. Yet there is no sense of "stretching" as is sometimes the case when a short story is made into a novel or novella. Zaroulis's patient, careful buildup only heightens our anticipation and provides us with the proper grounding for what is to follow. And when the denouement comes, it comes swiftly, and then the unraveling is quickened to what used to be called "the end." Ironically enough, the novel ends with a full colon and then some white pages.
Some quibbles: I was not able to see why Mrs. Richmond's daughter should be named Lenore. There is nothing in Poe's poem by that name that I could find that fits the character in this novel. Perhaps she is ironically named. However the "Annie" presented here is completely consistent with the character lauded in Poe's poem, "For Annie." However, Zaroulis's use of her likeness, as it were, is sinister and ironic. I was also a little dissatisfied that Zaroulis did not further develop the (strange!) sexual relationship between Lenore and the narrator. I kept imagining how Hollywood would do it in a movie. Still, Zaroulis's treatment--with one brief exception on page 158--is in keeping with the Victorian style in such matters, and of course Poe's tales were without overt sexuality. Finally, I wish Zaroulis would have cleaned up the vomit before that scene was played out! I kept smelling it and imagined that such an odor would dampen any enthusiasm.
In conclusion let me give the quote from Henry James mentioned above since it is Zaroulis's thematic touchstone for the novel and part of the psyche of her protagonist: "The historian, essentially, wants more documents than he can really use; the dramatist only wants more liberties than he can really take."
--Dennis Littrell, author of “Novels and Other Fictions”
September 15, 2015
I liked it. It had a very interesting twist. The writing was fast paced and authentic. I thought that the story really didn't need the sex scene (and I'm not a prude...just more of a purest to the Poe style) and would have still kept the flavor of the plot.
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