Book Review: A Quiet Madness: A biographical novel of Edgar Allan Poe by John Isaac Jones

About:
A Quiet Madness: A biographical novel of Edgar Allan Poe by John Isaac Jones is a fictional biography of the famous poet. Mr. Jones is a published author and a renowned journalist.

• 426 pages
• ISBN-10: 1733350055
• Publisher: John I. Jones
• Language:: English

My rating for A Quiet Madness – 4
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More Books by John Isaac Jones*
Books by Edgar Allen Poe*

Thoughts:
I have read the works of Edgar Allen Poe in a collection many years ago. It was a very nice book I bought, hard cover, great quality, which I promptly gave to the local library when I moved. I enjoyed the book, the stories, and the obvious talent, however my main outtake from it was the Mr. Poe was absolutely insane.

In A Quiet Madness: A biographical novel of Edgar Allan Poe by John Isaac Jones the author novelizes the life of Mr. Poe, and uses conjecture to fill in the blanks (for example: how Poe died).  The book is well written, but it is in short bursts which move the story along. When I first started it I thought it was going to be more literary, the narrative quickly changed though. I was surprised because for a somewhat long book that is mostly consists of short segments.

I don’t know much about Poe’s life, besides the bullet points many people are familiar with. I thought the author did a good job re imagining his life, habits, and most of all motivations. I especially enjoyed the chapter in which Poe wrote his most famous poem “The Raven” and how it came to be. There are several chapters which deal with how Poe came up with the ideas to several of his stories and poems, not all of them of course. I found these chapters to be the most enjoyable, interesting, and fascinating. There are many aspects of Poe’s history I never knew about, his soldering days and talent in boxing, just to name two of them, which were fascinating to read about.

The novel is written in a simple language, almost a YA type of narrative. I found it a bit strange because some of the subject matter is not simple and I found the width between the short, poignant writing and racy subjects somewhat strange, but somehow fitting with Poe’s life and writing.

Overall this was an enjoyable read. Historical fiction done well, interweaving both historical facts and historical figures to tell of the sad life of a mad genius.

Buy A Quiet Madness from Amazon.com*
More Books by John Isaac Jones*
Books by Edgar Allen Poe*

Zohar – Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I got this book for free
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account