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Sylvia Plath is an object of enduring cultural fascination—the troubled patron saint of confessional poetry, a writer whose genius is buried under the weight of her status as the quintessential literary sad girl. Emily Van Duyne—a superfan and scholar—radically reimagines the last years of Plath’s life, confronts her suicide and the construction of her legacy. Drawing from decades of study on Plath and her husband, Ted Hughes, the chief architect of Plath’s mythology; the life and tragic suicide of Assia Wevill, Hughes’s mistress; newly available archival materials; and a deep understanding of intimate partner violence, Van Duyne seeks to undo the silencing of Sylvia Plath and resuscitate her as the hardworking, brilliant writer she was.
Sylvia Plath is an object of enduring cultural fascination—the troubled patron saint of confessional poetry, a writer whose genius is buried under the weight of her status as the quintessential literary sad girl. Emily Van Duyne—a superfan and scholar—radically reimagines the last years of Plath’s life, confronts her suicide and the construction of her legacy. Drawing from decades of study on Plath and her husband, Ted Hughes, the chief architect of Plath’s mythology; the life and tragic suicide of Assia Wevill, Hughes’s mistress; newly available archival materials; and a deep understanding of intimate partner violence, Van Duyne seeks to undo the silencing of Sylvia Plath and resuscitate her as the hardworking, brilliant writer she was.