Wild Nights!: Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway (Hardcover)

by Joyce Carol Oates (Author) "7 October 1849..." (more)
Key Phrases: schoolgirl hand, nurse supervisor, young stag, Ward Six, Mark Twain, Nurse Edwards (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this intriguing collection, Oates writes fictional death scenes for five canonical American writers, adopting elements of their signature styles with mixed results. The Poe story, written as a diary in the months after Poe's death, doesn't quite dole out its revelations with Poe-like abandon. Emily Dickinson's end is set not in 19th-century New England but in the 21st-century New Jersey suburbs, where an Emily Dickinson replicant, complete with enigmatical utterances, is purchased by a tax attorney and his wife to liven up the house, but ends up highlighting the banality of their existences. Samuel Clemens's death is set, menacingly, against his penchant for befriending adolescent girls, a habit deplored by his spinster daughter, Clara. The prize story, however, is Papa at Ketchum 1961, where Oates inhabits Hemingway's terse style to show the great man going down in a paroxysm of psychoses. This brutal turning of Hemingway against himself sparks a torrent of rage like that of early Oates novels such as Them. It marks an explosive ending to Oates's peculiar fantasy game, one that begs to be treated at length. (Apr.)
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Review
"Our most industrious writer back at the anvil, making her usual unholy racket, while simultaneously throwing off sporadic sparks of unalloyed brilliance." -- Kirkus Reviews

"…an imaginative, impressive work that spotlights yet another side of Oates’ prodigious talent." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"…when tackling Wild Nights!...I found myself not only enthralled but transported." -- Washington Times

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; First Edition. 1 in number line edition (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061434795
• ISBN-13: 978-0061434792
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #390,440 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars `Literary Imitation Is The Highest Form Of Flattery', May 4, 2008

By	Jon Linden (Warren, N.J. United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In this book, Joyce Carol Oates, (JCO), really shows her skill as a writer. In these five tales, Oates alters the final years of five writers: Edgar Alan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens; Henry James and Earnest Hemmingway. She writes a tale that for some of them is a shocking view, but never without merit. Oates shows truly unique and incredible talent, as each one of the stories is as if written in the hand of the author she is describing.

For example, in E. A. Poe's case, she changes the scene of his death to a lighthouse off the coast of Chile. But the real beauty is in the way she imitates Poe, writing about Poe. In her story about Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens, she imitates his writing style, while being both autobiographical and biographical, inventing some very interesting outside interests that Mr. Twain indulged himself in, but not in an improper or truly ethically aberrant manner, if at least a little inappropriate. Twain's story is significantly epistemological as she utilizes a letter format in much of the story to move her point along, and since there is such a plethora of Twain correspondence, JCO can more easily transport herself into Twain in that writing style.

While her stories of Dickinson and James are equally fabulous pieces, she truly outdoes herself in her depiction of Hemingway, in his later life, married to wife number four, describing his suicidal ideations and attempts in a highly autobiographical tone, with a truly polished `Hemingway' manner that only a true expert in the writings of the man and the history of the man, could conjure eloquent execution of another author's writing style, while still keeping within her inner framework of the psychological school of writing. She analyzes and exposits the thoughts of that old and famous mind in her story, truly creating a manuscript that is worthy of Hemingway himself, and perhaps if the reader was unaware that it was not written by Hemingway, such a distinction might not ever be made, so fine is her imitative authorship and literary craftmanship.

This truly is a classic piece of JCO's writing talent and should be highly prized by JCO readers and literary students of all types, considering the 5 authors she has depicted. It truly is a fine work of creativity, which should be read and even studied for the things that Joyce finds within the minds and the hearts and the words of these great literary figures.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wild nights--and last days, July 1, 2008

By	Steven A. Peterson (Hershey, PA (Born in Kewanee, IL)) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Joyce Carol Oates notes where the title for this volume comes from, as she quotes verse from Emily Dickinson:

"Wild Nights--Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!"

This is a book, as the subtitle indicates, about the "Last days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway." As such, there is considerable idiosyncrasy and fantasy here. Poe's and Dickinson's last days, of course, were nothing as portrayed here. However, each short story does capture something of their minds and possibly of, in Poe's case, his state of mind "at the end."

There are five stories of endings. Some are fairly "realistic," whatever that term might mean. There is Hemingway. His story begins with his suicide, and then following thereafter is a set of vignettes letting the reader know something of his personality and thinking. Not an altogether pretty picture, whether imagining shooting his father, his macho views of women, his self-loathing as he ages and cannot perform (artistically or physically) as once he could, his disdain for his fourth wife. And always that self-loathing. His drinking? As Oates mentions as Hemingway is depicted as helping with the funeral/burial of his father (who also committed suicide) (Page 207): "Afterward he did in fact get damned good and drunk and the drunk would last for thirty years." A not-very-flattering picture, but the rage and all else seemed to push him to his inevitable end. A powerful piece of work in this book.

Then there is the science-fiction/fantasy story of the last days of Emily Dickinson. She appears here, actually, as a "replicant," smaller than life. A couple with a rather dead marriage purchase her to pacify the wife but also provide something new in the household. The arc of the story, as the reader begins to detect, is going to end up with unhappiness. The ending is ambiguous and telling, although the story does not "catch fire" as a whole.

And Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens. He is near the end of his life, he knows that he has lost his powers as a writer and recognizes the waning of his physical--and even mental--powers. One method for him to soldier forward is development of an Angelfish Club for girls 11-15. What he does is disturbing to the reader, as he uses these children for reasons of his own. In counterpoint to his strange attraction to the young is his cold relationship to his daughter, Clara, who only seems to want to capture his love and affection. This is a distressing and powerful story of "last days."

And the stories of Edgar Allen Poe, not fully convincing, and Henry James, poignantly done. . . .

All in all, a sort of "mixed bag." Some of the stories are genuinely compelling; others are less convincing. As a collection, though, this volume leads to some degree of self-reflection. I caught myself wondering if I could possibly end up like a Hemingway (doubtful) or a Twain (hopefully not!) or. . . . Anyhow, despite some questions about this book, I would rate it worth taking a look at if the premise seems at all intriguing.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oates at her virtuosic best!, May 31, 2008

By	Jeff Abell (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

In these five stories, Oates imagines the final days of five iconic American writers: Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry James, and Ernest Hemingway. Each of these is both an homage to the writer, and an often ironic look at his or her work. The Poe story, for example, was suggested by a one-page draft Poe left behind at his death, and the result is certainly something we might imagine Poe writing. Similarly, the Hemingway story has the cadence and repetition of his prose. The Twain finds the old man fixated on young girls, and dealing with the consequences of that fixation. But my favorites are the Dickinson and James stories. "EDickinson RepliLuxe" finds the poet turned into a reduced scale robot and adopted by an unhappily married couple, while the James story (the most genuinely moving of the five) finds the aging writer working as a hospital volunteer in London during World War One, falling in love with his handsome yet horribly injured patients. This collection is further demonstration of what a genuinely brilliant writer Oates is: well worth reading!