Anne Sexton - by Diane Middlebrook (Paperback)

About the Book

Nominated for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, controversial for its revelations of infidelity and incest and for its use of tapes released by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet's psychiatrist, this bestselling biography is a brilliant and compassionate portrait of a woman who thrived on making shock waves--in her work and in her life. 43 photographs.

Book Synopsis

Nominated for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, controversial for its revelations of infidelity and incest and for its use of tapes released by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet's psychiatrist, this bestselling biography is a brilliant and compassionate portrait of a woman who thrived on making shock waves--in her work and in her life. 43 photographs.

Review Quotes

A wonderful book, just, balanced, insightful, complex in its sympathies and in its judgment of Sexton both as a person and as a writer... a deeply moving account."-- The New York Times Book Review

"Judicious and canny. [Middlebrook] appreciates both Sexton's gifts as a poet and her attractive side as a human being...but looks at her destructive weaknesses with a steady eye." -- Time

"Sympathetic but resolutely unsentimental ... intelligent, sensitive, at times harrowing." -- Joyce Carol Oates, Washington Post Book World

About the Author

Diane Middlebrook was an American biographer, poet, and teacher. She taught feminist studies for many years at Stanford University. Middlebrook is best known for her acclaimed biographies of Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, and Billy Tipton. She passed away in 2007.