Mrs. Poe, by Lynn Cullen

For contributing to Bryan's Poe bust project, I received a signed copy of Mrs. Poe, which probes into the relationship between Poe and poet Frances Osgood (and Poe's sickly wife, and Osgood's absent, philandering husband).

It's a very successful piece of historical fiction, although a few details stick out as gratuitous results of research rather than being intrinsic to the story. Told from Osgood's point of view, it provides an interesting look into her mindset as she deals with her changing feelings towards Poe, who charms and glowers his way through New York literary society like Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. Largely faithful to the actual history, the book is least successful in injecting a bit of a mystery into the action. And as a Poe lover it was very satisfying to see Griswold hatefully portrayed.

Everybody hates Everybody more

Some of the same researchers involved in the 2003 American Mosaic Survey have released results of the 2014 study.

There a really glaring result relating to when people were asked to agree/disagree with the following statement across a variety of demographics:

This group does not at all agree with my vision of American society

Atheists 39.6% 41.9%
Muslims 26.3% 45.5%
Homosexuals 22.6% 29.4%
Conservative Christians 13.5% 26.6%
Recent immigrants 12.5% 25.6%
Hispanics 7.6% 17.1%
Jews 7.4% 17.6%
Asian Americans 7.0% 16.4%
African Americans 4.6% 16.9%
Spiritual, but not religious — 12.0%
Whites 2.2% 10.2%

First number is from 2003.

All of the numbers have increased. Some by quite a lot. Even white people, who are totally awesome and chill, went from 2.2% to 10.2%. Disagreement with conservative Christians nearly doubled to 26.6%. The previous study was not long after 9/11, but disagreement with Muslims jumped from 26.3% to 45.5%. Immigrants doubled. Hispanics, Jews, Asians, African Americans... all jump from single digits to double digits.

This is what polarization and demonization look like.