Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

Product Description

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography • “One of the most beautiful biographies I’ve ever read.” —Glennon Doyle, author of #1
New York Times Bestseller,
Untamed

The highly anticipated biography of Sylvia Plath that focuses on her remarkable literary and intellectual achievements, while restoring the woman behind the long-held myths about her life and art.

With a wealth of never-before-accessed materials, Heather Clark brings to life the brilliant Sylvia Plath, who had precocious poetic ambition and was an accomplished published writer—even before she became a star at Smith College. Refusing to read Plath’s work as if her every act was a harbinger of her tragic fate, Clark considers the sociopolitical context as she thoroughly explores Plath’s world: her early relationships and determination not to become a conventional woman and wife; her troubles with an unenlightened mental health industry; her Cambridge years and thunderclap meeting with Ted Hughes; and much more.

Clark’s clear-eyed portraits of Hughes, his lover Assia Wevill, and other demonized players in the arena of Plath’s suicide promote a deeper understanding of her final days. Along with illuminating readings of the poems themselves, Clark’s meticulous, compassionate research brings us closer than ever to the spirited woman and visionary artist who blazed a trail that still lights the way for women poets the world over.

Review

*Winner of the Biographers’ Club Slightly Foxed Prize for Best First Biography**Finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in Biography**Named a “Book of the Year” by The Times (London), The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, O, the Oprah Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Literary Hub, and The Times of India*
“Mesmerizing . . . Comprehensive . . . Stuffed with heretofore untold anecdotes that illuminate or extend our understanding of Plath’s life . . . Clark is a felicitous writer and a discerning critic of Plath’s poetry . . . There is no denying the book’s intellectual power and, just as important, its sheer readability.”
—
Daphne Merkin, The New York Times

“An exhaustively researched, frequently brilliant masterwork. . . . It is an impressive achievement representing a prizeworthy contribution to literary scholarship and biographical journalism.”

—
The Washington Post

“A majestic tome with the narrative propulsion of a thriller. We now have the complete story.” 

—O, The Oprah Magazine

“Surely the final, the definitive, biography of Sylvia Plath . . . Takes its time in desensationalizing the life and the art; this lets Clark place both firmly in the literary and politically engaged contexts that formed them and simultaneously demonstrate how Plath’s work, in return, gifted the writing life unimaginable new sinew.”

—Ali Smith, The Guardian (“The Best Books of 2020”)

“Clark masterfully analyzes the poetry with intelligent incorporation of the biography. . . .
Red Comet shows that the achievement of Sylvia Plath was miraculous—but it wasn’t spasmodic, or rare. It was hard-won, every single day.”

—Los Angeles Times
 
“Massive, insightful . . .
Red Comet is a critical examination of what it means to be a female artist, to suffer from depression, and to be alone, as it is revelatory about this one particular life and the art that came from it. The red comet (an image from her poem ‘Stings’) is an apt metaphor for Plath.”

—Boston Globe
 
“Revelatory. . . . Plath’s struggles with depression and her marriage to Ted Hughes emerge in complex detail, but Clark does not let Plath’s suicide define her artistic achievement, arguing with refreshing rigor for her significance to modern letters. The result is a new understanding and appreciation of an innovative, uncompromising poetic voice.”

—The New Yorker
 
“A definitive biography. . . . What ultimately bursts off the page is Plath’s short, vibrant life, which is too often most remembered for the way it ended: ‘That’s the irony, i