Ten White Geese: A Novel
Bakker, winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his first novel, The Twin (2010), begins and ends his hypnotic second novel with Emily Dickinson’s poem, “A Country Burial.” The haunting bookends are appropriate, since the protagonist is an Emily Dickinson scholar from Amsterdam calling herself Emilie and seeking anonymity in rural Wales. Initially confusing, the novel moves on to vividly conjure the misty, mossy landscape as local figures, such as the town’s chain-smoking doctor and an aggressive sheep farmer, offer breaks from Emilie’s intense solitude. Bakker switches between her and her husband, who, abandoned in Amsterdam, unexpectedly embarks on an urgent journey to reunite with his wayward wife. Meanwhile, an attractive young man shows up at Emilie’s rented farmhouse, only to express his distaste for poetry. Throughout, Emilie stays true to a greater purpose that is slowly and heartbreakingly revealed. In the process, she illuminates Dickinson’s life as she prepares to irrevocably alter her own. “Had she tried to hold back time,” Emilie muses about Dickinson, “making it bearable and less lonely too perhaps, by capturing it in hundreds of poems?” --Carolyn Alessio