Matthew Pearl
Matthew Pearl
Matthew Pearl is an American novelist and educator. His novels include The Dante Club, The Poe Shadow, The Last Dickens, and The Technologists. Editions have been published in more than 40 countries...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 October 1975
CountryUnited States of America
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I think respectful conflict is intrinsic to the spirit of literature. It reminds us that literary history is living and evolving and thrives on us being active participants.
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One important idea I hope is reflected in 'The Poe Shadow' is that fiction can add as much to history as nonfiction does.
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The novel has always been a contradictory form. Here is a long form narrative mainly read originally by consumers who were only newly literate or limited in their literacy. The novel ranked below poetry, essay and history in prestige for a long time.
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The book I'm working on next, which will be my fifth, returns to literary history. I really do love literary history, and I have plenty more ideas on it.
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What's most explosive about historical fiction is to use the fictional elements to pressure the history to new insights.
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As a writer of historical fiction, I believe you don't want to fictionalize gratuitously; you want the fictional aspects to prod and pressure the history into new and exciting reactions.
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Edgar Allan Poe, an earlier UVA student, once complained in a letter that his stepfather spoke to him as if Poe were one of the black slaves; some of the students at UVA surely felt the same about being told what to do by faculty.
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Dickens's final book, 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood,' forms the jumping-off point for my new novel, 'The Last Dickens'. This last work by Dickens has very little social commentary and a pretty tightly efficient storyline and cast of characters. Not necessarily what we think of when we think what characterizes Dickens.
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Considering what a prolific writer Dickens was, the word 'Dickensian' could legitimately cover a vast thematic territory, explaining at least some of the variety of its applications.
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I still have my high school copy of the collected Poe - missing its covers and pretty worse for the wear.
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When it comes to referring to Dickens's life, performing plays with your nine children for friends and family during Christmas is Dickensian.
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For several years at the University of Virginia, students had an annual tradition of raising hell around campus, burning tar barrels and shooting pistols into the air.
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Poe was plagued and haunted most of all by something pretty banal: poverty. Probably the most eccentric decision in life was to become a writer in an age when making a living at it was nearly impossible.
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Porter Square Books was the only place I could find that was dog-friendly, work-friendly, and had food. I was there all the time.