<div>We think we know Emily Dickinson: the Belle of Amherst, virginal, reclusive, and possibly mad. But in<i>A Loaded Gun</i>, Jerome Charyn introduces us to a different Emily Dickinson: the fierce, brilliant, and sexually charged poet who wrote:<br><br><i>My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—<br>…<br>Though I than He— may longer live<br>He longer must—than I—<br>For I have but the power to kill,<br>Without—the power to die—</i><br><br>Through interviews with contemporary scholars, close readings of Dickinson’s correspondence and handwritten manuscripts, and a suggestive, newly discovered photograph that is purported to show Dickinson with her lover, Charyn’s literary sleuthing reveals the great poet in ways that have only been hinted at previously: as a woman who was deeply philosophical, intensely engaged with the world, attracted to members of both sexes, and able to write poetry that disturbs and delights us today.<br><br><b>Jerome Charyn</b> is the author of, most recently, <i>Bitter Bronx: Thirteen Stories</i>,<i>I Am Abraham: A Novel of Lincoln and the Civil War</i>, and <i>The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson: A Novel</i>. He lives in New York.<br></div>