Purloined Letters

Getting to the meat of the Poe-boy sandwich.

by Shaun Brady

In Edgar Allan Poe's 1839 short story "William Wilson," a profligate young man is dogged by a doppelganger, alike in name and appearance, who constantly foils his nefarious schemes until the narrator is forced to destroy his double and, therefore, himself.

QUOTH THE MASTER: Louis Bayard and Matthew Pearl met after finding out they each had written Poe-themed mystery novels. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

When authors Louis Bayard and Matthew Pearl each discovered that the other had written a mystery novel involving Poe, and further that they were scheduled to be published on the same day in May of last year, they may have felt eerily close to Poe's tale. "We used to joke about which of us is Wilson and which is the doppelganger," Bayard laughs. "But I'm glad it's worked out a little more charitably than that."

In fact, the two will share the stage at the Free Library tonight to discuss their books and Poe's place in American literature. Though both admit to being initially dismayed at the coincidence (Pearl, who went through a similar ordeal when his first novel, The Dante Club, followed shortly after Nick Tosches' In the Hand of Dante, admits to a brief panic attack, while Bayard recalls his reaction as "Oh my god, this fucking sucks"), Bayard now jokingly refers to the duo as a "Poe-boy sandwich."

That idea does reflect the two novels, which serve to bookend the familiar image of Poe. Bayard's The Pale Blue Eye (HarperCollins) involves a young Poe during his short stint as a cadet at West Point in 1830; Pearl's The Poe Shadow (Random House) takes place immediately following Poe's 1849 death, as a young lawyer and fan tries to unravel the mystery surrounding the writer's final days.

The origin for each can be traced back to their authors' high school days, the period when almost every student is introduced to Poe's work. "I really associate him with that high school-approved reading canon," says Bayard, "where they got you to read The Tell-Tale Heart and Judy Blume and A Separate Peace and all these books that sort of jumble in my head."

Bayard's earlier novel, Mr. Timothy, involved a grown-up version of Dickens' Tiny Tim, and Bayard was "casting around restlessly for another grave to rob. I was surprised to have Edgar Allan Poe's name circling around in my head, because I hadn't read him since college. He's been so absorbed into our cultural DNA that I don't think we recognize him anymore, yet he's behind so much. He created the detective story, he reinvigorated the gothic horror novel, he laid the groundwork for science fiction, he was incredibly protean in his imagination. So I liked the idea of paying off the debt that any mystery writer, any horror writer, anyone who writes about obsession has by putting him in a mystery, his own creation, and having him fend for himself."

On the other hand, Pearl deliberately chose not to make Poe a character. "The idea of doing that frightened me," he says. "We have such strong images of Poe that it's a hard task to pull off without alienating people. Louis does pull it off, and part of it, I think, is that he leaves room for you to keep your own image of Poe while also getting the writer's image."

Bayard's 21-year-old cadet Poe is already somewhat morbid and eccentric, but the events of his novel posit the inspiration for much of his later work. "I don't claim that my Poe is the true Poe," Bayard says. "I thought of it all along as a portrait of the artist as a young man. He would definitely stick out in ways that would be sometimes poignant and sometimes quite humorous. He's still unformed and searching for his own voice, and that creates a deep insecurity in someone when they're trying to become the man of their imaginings."

Instead of making Poe a character, Pearl makes Poe the mystery. In researching the novel, he compiled the available information and even turned up new facts about the author's death, offering his own version of events. But as the story progresses, the mystery itself falls away, replaced by its central character's obsession with Poe and his need to believe in him and his creations. In a sense, for Pearl, the act of researching his books becomes a mystery in itself.

"So for me, part of it is understanding and exploring the way books are actually created by real people. I hope readers get some of that, because we tend not to think of Poe as a real person but as an icon."

Poe is such a rich, almost "quasi-fictional" character, Bayard points out, that his life is ripe for these sorts of imaginings. "I like to use the metaphor of the big gothic mansion, which is where a lot of his stories take place. It has lots of rooms hidden away in the structure, rooms known only to the original architect, so there's room for a lot of us. We just have to find our own little place."

(s_brady@citypaper.net)

Matthew Pearl and Louis Bayard, Thu., July 19, 7 p.m., free, Central Library, 1901 Vine St., 215-686-5322, www.library.phila.gov.