When
I was writing my book about Sylvia Plath, I read many Plath biographies and
began to discern which ones were going to teach me something and which ones
were not. This book went beyond
learning; it made me feel the life of Sylvia Plath.
From the gelatin and raw
hamburger meals that abounded in shiny, 1950s America, to the cold chills she
felt in a flat in London, all by herself with two very young children months
before her suicide, I understood where Plath came from on a much more visceral
level.
This biography also showed me just how strange Plath was. She is painted in so many places as an all-America girl, who got good grades, a scholarship to
Smith, and was always popular with the ”right” kind of marriage-able 1950s boys
until, of course, she had a mental breakdown.
This
biography showed me that Plath never really conformed to those shiny post-war
American dreams. She liked darkness, she liked sex, and she wanted her life to be a
great big adventure. The Sylvia Ms. Clark shows is the Plath of the Ariel
poems: raw, brilliant, an outsider. It also shows that so much of her good-girl
image, an image she cultivated, came from her social class and the need to
always impress, to show her worth, as a poor scholarship student.
This biography
pushed the envelope so much on Plath research that it will be hard to do
better.
The first biography of this great and tragic poet that takes advantage of a wealth of new material, this is an unusually balanced, comprehensive and definitive life of Sylvia Plath.
'Surely the final, the definitive, biography of Sylvia Plath' Ali Smith
*WINNER OF THE SLIGHTLY FOXED PRIZE 2021* *A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH AND THE TIMES* *FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE IN BIOGRAPHY 2021*
Drawing on a wealth of new material, Heather Clark brings to life the great and tragic poet, Sylvia Plath. Refusing to read Plath's work as if her every act was a harbinger…
I
have always loved things (books, films, museum exhibits) that make me feel that
the universe is so very, very big, and I am so very, very small. The awe that
comes with eternity and such vastness has always had a place deep, so deep, in
my soul.
During the summer of 2007, I read Albert Camus’
The Stranger and that book hit a place in my soul so hard, I don’t think
it’s come loose. The bleak existentialism, the rawness of the narration, the
concrete and abstract images of North Africa, were like nothing I’d ever read
before – part philosophy, part travel literature, all high art.
Since that
summer, I have been searching for a way to return to that feeling I felt when I
first read The Stranger. I read Camus’ other works, and they were fine, but
not The Stranger. I tried Jean-Paul Sartre since the two are always
compared, and Sartre’s great, but he wasn’t The Stranger great. I tried
others, but they did not measure up.
But, I finally found it this summer when I read
Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky. This book follows an American couple
traveling in North Africa after World War II. The country, in fact the world,
is still reeling from the war, and the stain of colonialism can be seen in the
way the French collide with the native Arab population. But it is the healthy
dose of existentialism, the bleak, life is vast and empty and meaningless
feeling, that truly shines here.
“How
fragile we are under the sheltering sky. Behind the sheltering sky is a vast
dark universe, and we're just so small.” – The Sheltering Sky.
At the end of the day, this book is so, so
very big, and we are so, so, so very small.
'The Sheltering Sky is a book about people on the edge of an alien space; somewhere where, curiously, they are never alone' Michael Hoffman.
Port and Kit Moresbury, a sophisticated American couple, are finding it more than a little difficult to live with each other. Endeavouring to escape this predicament, they set off for North Africa intending to travel through Algeria - uncertain of exactly where they are heading, but determined to leave the modern world behind. The results of this casually taken decision are both tragic and compelling.
This book hurt me. It really, really hurt me. First, it gave me hope. Then, it gave me a sinking feeling deep in my chest, followed by
a sense of hopelessness and despair that really struck a nerve. And because it
was all fiction and I was completely safe, it was an awesome and beautiful
experience.
This novel explores a Puerto Rican American family living in Staten
Island, New York, set in two timelines: the 1990s and today (in a nebulous time,
pre-COVID). This book explores the Ramirez family as they grapple with the
disappearance of the middle child, Ruthy, in the ‘90s.
Ruthy navigates 1990s New
York with the reader while in the present day, her two sisters, Jessica and
Nina, find a girl on TV that they believe looks a lot like Ruthy on a reality
TV show. The present-day part of the novel not only explores the mystery of
what happened to Ruthy all those years ago, it also explores their relationship
with their mother and the strong bonds of this family.
The Ruthy sections,
which take place over the day Ruthy went missing, raise the stakes at every
turn as we learn that Ruthy’s best friend, whom she’s just started fighting
with, has been molested by family members for most of her childhood.
This novel
tackles many tough issues and culminates with the idea that women are still not
entirely safe in our society. It doesn’t matter if you have a group of friends
and a solid family fighting for you, sometimes when you’re a girl in the world,
the world is incredibly and unfairly dangerous.
This book will make you love
this family, you’ll want to root for them and because of that, it will make you
so, so angry at the scary world we’ve created for so many women.
A powerful debut novel that's "hilarious, heartbreaking, and ass-kicking" (Jamie Ford), of a Puerto Rican family in Staten Island who discovers their long‑missing sister is potentially alive and cast on a reality TV show, and they set out to bring her home.
A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Elle • USA Today • Today.com • Ms. Magazine • Good Housekeeping • Bustle • The Week • Goodreads • Bookriot • Pop Culturely • SheReads • Litreactor • Electric Lit • The Mary Sue • People Español • Zibby Mag • Debutiful • Her Campus
The Beekeeper’s Daughter is a literary rumination
on the life of Sylvia Plath.
Loreli Bauer, the novel’s protagonist, is a
modern writer and college professor who takes a self-imposed rest cure on Cape
Cod after a contentious divorce and shocking death. On the Cape, Loreli
explores her own mother’s issues with mental illness and the small towns on the
Cape that impacted Plath, her idol.
Loreli is gifted a “secret manuscript” by a
new friend, who said Plath herself gave it to her before she moved to England
for her Fullbright. The “secret manuscript” explores the life of Plath’s Bell
Jar heroine, Esther Greenwood, after she meets a man in England very much
like Ted Hughes, and is intended to be a continuation of her novel.