“Over the space of 50+ pages, Barker slips you in and out of Poe’s mind, his song, and his history. He steps through his life and all his loves. He tests the rhythm of a poetical dirge. His mother is there, Eliza. Starting with her, you see how women influenced Poe positively and men negatively. That should assist you in uncovering the roots of his poetry. That all of these important women, Eliza, Mrs. Allan, Virginia, et al, died with Poe still lost in the folds of their attentions – does that speak to his fascination with death? With loss? Lucidity, and its absence, is a tool that the gifted Barker works well. He shifts us from the hospital bed to a past memory, then to another past memory, then back to the bed. It works, informing and disturbing the reader as the narrator loses himself between history and consciousness. All in all, the most sympathetic and authentic treatment of Poe’s final days I’ve ever read.”
-By Michael T. Huyck, Jr., in his review for Feoamante.com
